Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy/Archive 21

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AnomieBOT fail

AnomieBOT is misbehavin', adding whitespace to closed references. I noted this on the bot's talk page and reverted, but the dumbass bot saw fit to revert me and then ask me to leave a message on its talk page if there was a problem. Duh. That's why bots will never fully replace humans! Anyway, I'll wait until the bot is fixed before reverting again. I trust nobody will complain about me breaking 1RR for bot-related fail? -- Scjessey (talk) 22:06, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

If the Bot has assimilated the local editing rules and reports you, then you are on your own. :) Seriously, that sounds like an acceptable exception.--SPhilbrickT 22:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Could the phrase "dumbass bot" be considered a personal attack? NickCT (talk) 22:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I've managed to fix all the problems. It's hard to tell, because lots of editors were joyfully fucking around reverting each other while I was trying to do it, despite my plea above and in an edit summary. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:32, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh FFS. I've just had to revert again because Nsaa isn't paying attention. Fix only what is broken! -- Scjessey (talk) 22:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Scjessey, your version is broken, and his is not. Look at the bottom of the page. Prodego ^talk 22:43, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That is not correct. The bot broke it after Nsaa screwed up. Thankfully, it has been fixed properly, instead of the proposed half-arsed effort. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Draft proposal for Jones e-mail of 16 Nov 1999

This draft responds to eric's comments and aims to clarify the section, omitting duplicated assertions and adding more from the Philadelphia Enquirer source. I've kept in one reference from RealClimate, noting explicitly that Mann is connected with them:

An excerpt from one November 1999 e-mail authored by Phil Jones refers to a graph he was preparing as a diagram for the cover of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) statement on the status of global climate in 1999:

"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

The graph shows three curves, each showing a reconstruction of past climate from a scientific paper named in the key to the diagram. The reconstructions were based on actual temperature records from the mid 19th century onwards, and proxy records from tree rings, corals, ice cores, lake sediments, and other records to give approximate past temperatures. "Mike's Nature trick" referred to a paper published in Nature in 1998, which combined various proxy records with actual temperature records. Michael Mann's Mann described the "trick" as simply a concise way of showing the two kinds of data together while still clearly indicating which was which. He said that there was nothing "hidden or inappropriate" about it, and that his method of combining proxy data had been corroborated by numerous statistical tests and matched thermometer readings taken over the past 150 years. Jones stated that "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward. RealClimate, which is associated with Mann, say that the "trick" was to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming was clear. They said that scientists often use the term "trick" to refer to a "a good way to deal with a problem", rather than something secret. Andrew Solow of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said he "would use a word like that to describe some methodological step, but it wouldn't mean it was meant to trick anyone."

The proxy records only went up to 1981, and one of the reconstructions, by Keith Briffa et al, was based solely on tree ring data which was known to have the divergence problem of a decline in correlation with measured temperatures after 1960. The authors of that reconstruction had published a statement on the divergence problem in 1998, and had recommended that the post 1960 part of their reconstruction should not be used. To meet a requirement that the graph should show temperatures to the present, Jones used instrumental data to extend the graph. Thus the curve representing Keith Briffa's reconstruction included proxy data up to 1960, but actual temperatures alone from 1961 to 1999. Jones has stated that the term ‘hiding the decline’ was in an email written in haste, and that, far from hiding the problem, CRU has published articles discussing this divergence or decline in tree rings. In his 2007 review comments on the IPCC 4AR, Stephen McIntyre objected to a graph of a Briffa et al tree ring based reconstruction being truncated at 1960, and said that the whole reconstruction should be shown with comments to deal with the ‘divergence problem’. The IPCC responded that this would be inappropriate.

It has been claimed by critics that the email sentence is evidence that temperature statistics have being manipulated. Richard Lindzen talked in terms of "falsification and rigging of data", but other climatolagists dispute these accusations, including Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center who saw nothing in the emails calling into question the fundamental science or undermining the scientific consensus, built on many independent lines of evidence, that the Earth was warming from human activities. McIntyre said that since the cause of the divergence problem is unknown, and it may have existed in earlier periods, tree ring records cannot be used to estimate temperatures in the past.

Before the incident, continuing research had already presented reconstructions based on more proxies, and found similar results with or without the tree ring records.

Comments welcome, dave souza, talk 00:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I tried to add a reflist for ease of viewing but most of the refs were ref-name attached to the main article. Are you rewriting sentences or just taking out material that might contradict BLP? I'm just trying to figure out if I can verify sources by looking at the main article or if you've altered sentences too. --Heyitspeter (talk) 02:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

As you say, I was using refs from the article, adding in ref. 1 – CRU update 23 November. The aim was to see if the text was a clearer explanation of the issues, here's a quick and dirty way of showing what references were used:

An excerpt from one November 1999 e-mail authored by Phil Jones refers to a graph he was preparing as a diagram for the cover of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) statement on the status of global climate in 1999:<CRU update 23 November>

"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."<refs as before>

The graph shows three curves, each showing a reconstruction of past climate from a scientific paper named in the key to the diagram. The reconstructions were based on actual temperature records from the mid 19th century onwards, and proxy records from tree rings, corals, ice cores, lake sediments, and other records to give approximate past temperatures.<"WMO statement on the status of global climate in 1999><"Climatic Research Unit update - 17.45 November 2> "Mike's Nature trick" referred to a paper published in Nature in 1998, which combined various proxy records with actual temperature records. Michael Mann's Mann described the "trick" as simply a concise way of showing the two kinds of data together while still clearly indicating which was which. He said that there was nothing "hidden or inappropriate" about it, and that his method of combining proxy data had been corroborated by numerous statistical tests and matched thermometer readings taken over the past 150 years.<Philadelphia Inquirer Dec 8> Jones stated that "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward.<CRU update 23 November> RealClimate, which is associated with Mann, say that the "trick" was to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming was clear. They said that scientists often use the term "trick" to refer to a "a good way to deal with a problem", rather than something secret.<The CRU hack". RealClimate.> Andrew Solow of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said he "would use a word like that to describe some methodological step, but it wouldn't mean it was meant to trick anyone."<Philadelphia Inquirer Dec 8>

The proxy records only went up to 1981, and one of the reconstructions, by Keith Briffa et al., was based solely on tree ring data which was known to have the divergence problem of a decline in correlation with measured temperatures after 1960. The authors of that reconstruction had published a statement on the divergence problem in 1998, and had recommended that the post 1960 part of their reconstruction should not be used.<Briffa 1998 paper><The CRU hack". RealClimate.> To meet a requirement that the graph should show temperatures to the present, Jones used instrumental data to extend the graph. Thus the curve representing Keith Briffa's reconstruction included proxy data up to 1960, but actual temperatures alone from 1961 to 1999. Jones has stated that the term ‘hiding the decline’ was in an email written in haste, and that, far from hiding the problem, CRU has published articles discussing this divergence or decline in tree rings.<CRU update 23 November><CRU update 24 November><"Climate change e-mails have been quoted totally out of context". The Times> In his 2007 review comments on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Stephen McIntyre objected to a graph of a Briffa et al. tree ring based reconstruction being truncated at 1960, and said that the whole reconstruction should be shown with comments to deal with the ‘divergence problem’. The IPCC responded that this would be inappropriate.<Finnish TV Transcript>

It has been claimed by critics that the email sentence is evidence that temperature statistics have being manipulated.<Guardian 20 Nov, Telegraph 23 Nov, Telegraph> Richard Lindzen talked in terms of "falsification and rigging of data", but other climatologists dispute these accusations, including Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center who saw nothing in the emails calling into question the fundamental science or undermining the scientific consensus, built on many independent lines of evidence, that the Earth was warming from human activities. <Philadelphia Inquirer Dec 8> McIntyre said that since the cause of the divergence problem is unknown, and it may have existed in earlier periods, tree ring records cannot be used to estimate temperatures in the past.<CNN McIntyre Transcript>

Before the incident, continuing research had already presented reconstructions based on more proxies, and found similar results with or without the tree ring records.<The CRU hack". RealClimate.><Mann, M. E.; Zhang, Z.; Hughes, M. K.; Bradley, R. S.; Miller, S. K.; Rutherford, S.; Ni, F. (2008). "Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105 (36): 13252–7. doi:10.1073/pnas.0805721105. PMC 2527990. PMID 18765811.>

Hope that helps, dave souza, talk 05:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Full quote from email

Your original lead above was much better than the current

An excerpt from one November 1999 e-mail authored by Phil Jones referred to a "trick" of having a graph of paleoclimate reconstructions show measured real temperatures from 1981 onwards for two series of climate reconstructions, and from 1961 for a third series "to hide the decline."[1][22][23][not in citation given]

The full quote should be restored. The intervening "of having a graph of paleoclimate reconstructions show measured real temperatures from 1981 onwards for two series of climate reconstructions, and from 1961 for a third series", is OR and pretends WP knows what the "trick" refers to. Let Mann speak for himself. Jpat34721 (talk) 23:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It's an email by Jones, not Mann, and the quote in the article with first names omitted is an interim solution until we provide sourced statements of who "Mike" and "Keith" are, to meet BLP concerns about giving first names only of those accused of wrongdoing by critics. If you're happy with the above approach, maybe we can put some of it into the article, but I intend to modify things in line with the CSM reference as discussed below. . . dave souza, talk 00:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Since the current version of the article doesn't make (unsourced) claims about "Mike" and "Keith", would it be alright if we added the text of the e-mail? The current "summary" of the e-mail isn't in the citations given. --Heyitspeter (talk) 01:24, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how there can be any BLP issue when the the e-mail does not definitively identify the people involved (first names only). Could you clarify the concern. But in any case, RC which is associated with the people in question has identified them.

RealClimate: "The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction....Note that the ‘hide the decline’ comment was made in 1999 – 10 years ago, and has no connection whatsoever to more recent instrumental records."

RealClimate: "As for the 'decline', it is well known that Keith Briffa's maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the "divergence problem" - see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682)."

Would this satisfy the concerm? Jpat34721 (talk) 01:54, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

<unindent> The problem of first names was discussed here, looking over my proposal above I can see it got rather mangled. My intention was something on these lines –

"Mike's Nature trick" referred to a paper published by Michael Mann in Nature in 1998, which combined various proxy records with actual temperature records. Mann described the "trick" as simply a concise way of showing the two kinds of data together while still clearly indicating which was which. He said that there was nothing "hidden or inappropriate" about it, and that his method of combining proxy data had been corroborated by numerous statistical tests and matched thermometer readings taken over the past 150 years.<Philadelphia Inquirer Dec 8>

I think there's less of an issue with "Keith" and we show it was Keith Briffa's curve that had discarded post 1960 in accordance with Briffa's guidance. If we add that sentence in, then there should be no problem in giving the quote from the email rather than summarising it. Ericr's comments would be welcome. . . dave souza, talk 13:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I think your paragraph looks great. I assume it would follow immediately after the full quote from the e-mail? Jpat34721 (talk) 14:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that was my intention. I've now implemented it together with the introductory paragraph proposed above, and with the paragraph split at the Briffa section so that one paragraph deals with the "trick", and the following one deals with the tree ring "decline". . dave souza, talk 16:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Nice job. When reading through the section I get a bit lost here:

One of the reconstructions, by Keith Briffa et al., was based solely on tree ring data which was already known to have the divergence problem of a decline in correlation with measured temperatures after 1960.[26] The authors of that reconstruction had published a statement on the divergence problem in 1998, and had recommended that the post 1960 part of their reconstruction should not be used.[27] In his 2007 review ...

Starting the paragraph with "One of the reconstructions" seems to lose the context and doesn't make it clear that we've moved from talking about the trick, to talking about "hiding the decline". Perhaps something like,

"Hide the decline" refers to a reconstruction by Briffa et al which used tree ring density as a proxy for regional temperatures. For reasons unknown, the proxy data from this reconstruction loses correlation with more direct measures of temperature from the same era, showing a decline when the temperature was thought to be rising. The authors of the reconstruction had published a statement on this divergence problem in 1998, and had recommended that the post 1960 part of their reconstruction should not be used.[27]. In his 2007 review ...

Jpat34721 (talk) 17:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Good thinking, have checked the source which is CRU update 2, and found it makes specific reference to chapter 6 of IPCC AR4, so amended the paragraph in accordance with the sources – see what you think. The description of them using "tree ring density" doesn't appear in the CRU source, which simply calls it data as far as I've found, so I've left it at that. . . dave souza, talk 18:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

My only issue is with the phase "decline in the correlation of tree ring data with temperature". While I think this is technically true, I doubt if most readers would grasp the controversy from this statement. A decline in correlation (a term many readers will be unfamiliar with) doesn't address the issue of slope, where in this case the curves are moving in opposite directions. How does: "The phrase "hide the decline" referred specifically to the so called divergence problem where temperatures derived from tree ring data appear to decrease after 1960 when actual temperatures were thought by most scientists to be rising." work for you. Jpat34721 (talk) 19:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, again an excellent point. That's me picking up technical language from the CRU update! As a quick compromise I've changed it to "The phrase "hide the decline" referred specifically to the divergence problem in which post 1960 tree ring proxy data indicate a decline while measured temperatures rise." Note that it wasn't a "thought by most scientists" situation, the measurements continue to show rising temperatures but the tree ring proxy of many (but not all) of the northern trees reacts in the way previously associated with falling measured temperatures. The possible reasons in the AR4 report as copied below are quite interesting, but there's not a consensus view on the cause. . . dave souza, talk 19:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice job and thanks for the cooperative manner in which you've approached this! The "most scientist" thing refers to some Russian scientists (don't have the reference handy) who are disputing the Siberian temperature record, claiming the dataset used by the CRU (HadCRUT I think), had under-estimated the urban island effect by a factor of 3. We don't want to open that can o' worms, but I just wanted to convey the notion that agreement on temperature trends in the Yurals is not 100%. This is just FYI, I'm not proposing a change. Thanks again. Jpat34721 (talk) 20:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

RFC - removal of redundant Mann quote in this section

To improve the choppiness of this section I would like to eliminate the Time sourced quote below and leave just the Mann quote which follows immediately.

Time quoted Michael Mann saying that the statistical "trick" referred to the replacing of proxy temperature data from tree rings in recent years with more accurate data from air temperatures.[29]

Mann described the "trick" as simply a concise way of showing the two kinds of data together while still clearly indicating which was which. He said that there was nothing "hidden or inappropriate" about it, and that his method of combining proxy data had been corroborated by numerous statistical tests and matched thermometer readings taken over the past 150 years.[16]

The second quote includes all of the information of the first and is more explicit. Of course, if consensus is that the Time quote is better, I'd have no objection to going with that one and eliminating the second one. Jpat34721 (talk) 02:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

My proposal immediately above is to move the Mann quote up to the current second paragraph, immediately before "A press release by the University of East Anglia ...." which might be made the start of a new paragraph. Agree with discarding the Time quote which is essentially a duplication. . . dave souza, talk 13:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Moving the Mann quote seems fine to me. Are we also in agreement about restoring the full Jone's email quote? In the context paragraph that follows the full quote, we could either leave Briffa's last name out of it and just talk about the tree ring data or name him (my preference), using RC as the source. Jpat34721 (talk) 14:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

As discussed above, I've now moved the Mann quote and removed the surplus Time quote, and have restored the larger quote from Jones's email. Note that it's not the full email, a longer quote from it is given in the CRU statement which I've cited for the new first paragraph. As stated, the Briffa tree ring reconstruction "decline" is now dealt with in a separate paragraph, naming him and using CRU update 2 as the source, so I don't think we need to cite RC for that particular statement. Will try to review the rest of the section, which is essentially unchanged, but rather busy just now. . . dave souza, talk 16:24, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

CSM article and IPCC AR4

Thanks Dave. Fixed a couple typos. Still has one major problem - using McI to comment on the appropriateness of the science. "McIntyre said that since the cause of the divergence problem is unknown" - surely there's a real expert who could be quoted to talk about the issue (maybe something from the CSM article we discussed here a little while ago?) Guettarda (talk) 16:48, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Couple other minor fixes; IPCC is a dab page, and AR4 is an abbreviation that most readers wouldn't know. Guettarda (talk) 16:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Guettarda, excellent source which I'd not read previously. I've downloaded chapter 6 of IPCC AR4, pp. 472–473, from here:

All of the large-scale temperature reconstructions discussed in this section, with the exception of the borehole and glacier interpretations, include tree ring data among their predictors so it is pertinent to note several issues associated with them. .... Several analyses of ring width and ring density chronologies, with otherwise well-established sensitivity to temperature, have shown that they do not emulate the general warming trend evident in instrumental temperature records over recent decades, although they do track the warming that occurred during the early part of the 20th century and they continue to maintain a good correlation with observed temperatures over the full instrumental period at the interannual time scale (Briffa et al., 2004; D’Arrigo, 2006). This ‘divergence’ is apparently restricted to some northern, high-latitude regions, but it is certainly not ubiquitous even there. In their large-scale reconstructions based on tree ring density data, Briffa et al. (2001) specifically excluded the post-1960 data in their calibration against instrumental records, to avoid biasing the estimation of the earlier reconstructions (hence they are not shown in Figure 6.10), implicitly assuming that the ‘divergence’ was a uniquely recent phenomenon, as has also been argued by Cook et al. (2004a). Others, however, argue for a breakdown in the assumed linear tree growth response to continued warming, invoking a possible threshold exceedance beyond which moisture stress now limits further growth (D’Arrigo et al., 2004). If true, this would imply a similar limit on the potential to reconstruct possible warm periods in earlier times at such sites. At this time there is no consensus on these issues (for further references see NRC, 2006) and the possibility of investigating them further is restricted by the lack of recent tree ring data at most of the sites from which tree ring data discussed in this chapter were acquired.

That also impinges on McIntyre's claim that the graph in IPCC AR4 was wrongly truncated: what he didn't say is that the text explicitly states that the graph is truncated and why, and the text spells out the lack of consensus amongst experts about the implications of this divergence for accuracy of the proxy in earlier periods. Thus he presents an impression of conspiratorial secrecy about something that was actually spelt out in the published report in 2007. For the science the Christian Monitor articles and IPCC report are better, McIntyre's misleading statements can be presented along with what the Christian Monitor calls "purported revelations" that "skeptics of human-induced climate change say shows that climate scientists are manipulating data". . . dave souza, talk 17:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Passive-voice weaselling

There are a number of places in the article, which I've marked with a <small?>[who?], where there is some very unsatisfactory passive-voice weaselling: "Claims have been made" (by who?) and in several places, "Critics say" (which critics?). This sort of thing really isn't acceptable; we're supposed to properly attribute opinions, as WP:NPOV#Attributing and specifying biased statements spells out. It needs to be fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that at least some of these are cited. Take this diff. The cited source says "Critics say: This proves that the world is not warming and leading IPCC scientists cannot explain why." Who are the critics? I have no idea. But this is a problem with the New Zealand Herald, not with Wikipedia. The fact that critics say it is well cited and verified. WP:AWW is meant to deal with uncited use of weasel words, not ones that can properly be cited in reliable sources. Oren0 (talk) 01:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the problem is with "critics say." It's a problem, not with the NZ Herald, but with the phrase, and the phrase should not be used here. This article should include what the qualifications are of these critics. I'd expect to see the names and institutional affiliations of these critics, along with citations of their work, before I'd allow them mentioned in this article - especially in a controversial subject such as this one. Hmoulding (talk) 22:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

In general I agree with your observation except that in the lead "Allegations were made" was marked with a who. I do not believe there is any question that allegations have been made, and not just by AWG skeptics as was explicated stated in a revision I edited. If allegations had not been made, there would by definition be no controversy and this article wouldn't exist. The allegations are spelled out in detail in the article body and well sourced, hence no need to cite in the lead. Jpat34721 (talk) 01:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The passive voice is to be avoided. If the source uses the passive voice, the comment should be attributed to the source. It could be written "According to the New Zealand Herald, critics say..." (PS. Bonus points for spotting the irony.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

If this is about whether citations are available or not: they were there until recent deletion. I'm going to add them back tomorrow as per WP:VERIFY/WP:LEADCITE unless I hear an outcry. As for the passive voice being inherently problematic, I don't understand how that can be right. If you're referencing a WP policy, can you link to it? --Heyitspeter (talk) 11:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Or rather, "bonus points may be awarded for identification of the irony". Guettarda (talk) 01:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

New Canadian Reliable Source

I found this article from the canadian Maclean's that seems to be very unbiased and give a chance to both sides of the controversy. http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/01/07/the-truth-is-out-there-somewhere Echofloripa (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a neutral-sounding piece that's fairly lightweight with respect to detail, with little to offer in terms of sourcing for stuff. The problem is that we've reached the point where we need more facts (like the results of investigations) and less opinion. I would argue that if we had more details about specifics, there would be less controversy. It's almost as if the media is twiddling its thumbs awaiting new information, but in the meantime it must report something. So we end up with lots of opinion pieces written in sage-like commentary by people who really don't know diddly-squat about anything. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The author describes himself as amongst those "honestly confused, trying to puzzle out a complex scientific question they are not remotely qualified to judge". His usual columns seem to be about politics, but not sure about the notability of his political analysis. . . dave souza, talk 18:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

He does make a point that I think we should take note of. Many scientists who are not AWG skeptics have expressed dismay over the contents of the e-mails, the fudge factors in the programs etc. Our liberal use of "climate skeptics alledge..." (in various forms) in the article I think ignores this and IMHO is not POV neutral. I especially object to the misnomer "climate skeptics" which itself a pejorative phrase used by AWG proponents to paint anyone with doubts as a flat-earther and thus suffers from the same objection raised about the term "Climategate". "Climate skeptics" paints with way too broad a brush and I hope we can reach consensus on a more neutral and accurate phrase. Jpat34721 (talk) 18:32, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a fair point, but each instance has to be dealt with on merits as in many cases the sources do highlight the "skepticism" of those making claims. Could you identify specific cases that you think need reexamined? The "fudge factors in the programs" issue also has to be carefully analysed as accusations appear to have been made without any evidence that the programs are currently in use, or were in use at a significant stage. That's an issue that may need more attention. . dave souza, talk 18:43, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I concur that some of the use of "climate sceptic" qualifiers is probably inappropriate. We have no need for constructs like "climate change sceptic Lord Lawson" and "climate sceptic United States Senator Jim Inhofe", for example. In instances like these, the BLPs for these individuals aready explain their positions with respect to anthropogenic global warming. I'd like to propose that these qualifiers (and any others of a similar nature) be stripped from the article, except in situations where the BLP of the individual in question does not indicate their skeptical stance. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Lord lawson is a good example. He is not an AWG skeptic. He is on record as accepting the the earth is warming and that human activity is responsible. He disputes the confidence bands of the GCMs (he thinks they're too low) and because of this he thinks the cost-benefit ratio of mitigation is way off. To dismiss his nuanced view as simple a "climate sceptic" is unfair and inaccurate. Jpat34721 (talk) 19:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Fudge factor. Guettarda (talk) 18:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Butter fudge (the crumbly stuff, sometimes called "butter tablet") is my favorite. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Strongly agree with Scjessey that we keep descriptions of already-linked people to a minimum. It leads far too easily into well-poisoning or argument from authority. If they're worth mentioning here then they probably have their own article and a reader can find out with one click who they are. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Well you learn something new every day. I'e never heard of butter fudge before in my life, but our article appears to be describing Russian fudge Nil Einne (talk) 14:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

strawman in FactCheck paragraph in email intro

Currently we have:

Summarising its own analysis, FactCheck stated that claims by climate sceptics that the emails demonstrated scientific misconduct amounting to fabrication of global warming were unfounded, and emails were being misrepresented to support these claims. While the emails showed a few scientist being rude or dismissive, this did not negate evidence that human activities were largely responsible for global warming, or the conclusions of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which used the CRU as just one of many sources of data.[19] The IPCC's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, described the CRU's scientists "as highly reputed professionals, whose contributions over the years to scientific knowledge are unquestionable" and described their datasets as "totally consistent with those from other institutions, on the basis of which far-reaching and meaningful conclusions were reached in the [2007 IPCC report]."[20]

FactCheck, which normally does a reasonable job of unbiased analysis, is in this case engaging in the pulverizing of strawmen, especially in their unsourced claim that the emails were being used to "demonstrated scientific misconduct amounting to fabrication of global warming". Plenty have alleged they demonstrated scientific misconduct. Plenty have alleged that they have overstated their case. Few if any reputable critics have alleged that it amounts to a complete fabrication (as if e-mails alone could ever prove such a thing).

This brings up a larger point. We should not be using the extremes of either side in presenting the arguments. To do otherwise, gives undue weight and makes it appear that only the whackos are concerned about the contents of email and the implications they have for the scientific process. Nor it it "news" that some "experts" accept Mann's et al explanations and some do not. Where do we draw the line in presenting the back and forth "analysis" which do not (and can not) add new information. It seems to me the article could be much improved if we were to present the text of emails that have arisen as the major points of contention, find a balanced analysis that puts it in context and present the explanation by the author, if any and call it done.

Thoughts? Jpat34721 (talk) 19:04, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with you. It seems likely that the "claims by climate sceptics that the emails demonstrated scientific misconduct amounting to fabrication of global warming" refer to comments made by people like Jim Inhofe. Plenty of well-known international figures have claimed that anthropogenic global warming is nonsense, and have used this manufactured controversy as "proof". Factcheck disputes these allegations. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yesterday a number of editors roundly criticize the Revkin NYT piece I offered as a source for the use of ("Climategate") as a valid neologism as needing to be sprinked with dozens of tags. I would ask that you and they reread the FactCheck article with an eye toward the same critique. They nowhere say who are making the allegations, what their qualifications are for making them. Nor do they analyze any of the more nuanced criticism that have been leveled by scientists who are not AWG skeptics. The views of blowhards Crusaders like Jim Inhofe are exactly the kind of analysis that doesn't belong in the e-mail section (although they're clearly appropriate in the government response section). Jpat34721 (talk) 19:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The analysis by FactCheck specifically cites Saudi Arabian climate negotiator Mohammad Al-Sabban who "went so far as to tell the BBC: 'It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change.' He said that he expected news of the e-mails to disrupt the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen this month. An article from the conservative-leaning Canada Free Press claims that the stolen files are proof of a 'deliberate fraud' and 'the greatest deception in history'." Those is a couple of heavyweight strawmen, ahem. . . dave souza, talk 19:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

A couple of points. We are not quoting the analysis but the summary, where no one is identified. As for that analysis, my criticism is that it ignores the more nuanced critiques that have been made by reputable scientists and concentrates on the extremes. I count this a form of strawmanism. Jpat34721 (talk) 19:32, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Have you a source analysing the usage that states that the neologism is used by reputable scientists presenting more nuanced critiques? Note that I'm not asking for your original research in finding primary sources, but for a third party critique? FactCheck makes a statement about a specific kind of "skeptic" using the term, we'd need a similarly independent source to add that the term is also used by more responsible commentators. . . dave souza, talk 19:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but I do not understand you comment in the context my comments above it. I am not trying to reraise the neologism issue. My point was that the FactCheck article suffers from the same critique that others made here about the NYT piece. (Of course, how one could ever source an obvious truism like "which some have call "Climategate") is left as an exercise for the reader :>) Jpat34721 (talk) 19:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate your critique, but that's your own personal opinion and hence is original research. If and when the neologism is accepted as standard usage rather than as a derogatory slogan, we should be able to find reliable sources making that analysis and can then add it to the article. At present, we have a clear statement from a source with a reputation for reliability that the term is being used by specific critics who cannot be reasonably described as "strawmen". . . dave souza, talk 19:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

We agree on neologism issue which is why yesterday I raised the white flag and propose we eliminate them all. The lack of consensus here is indicative to me that the standards set out in WP:Using Neologisms have not yet been met and so we should follow the policy laid out there, "when in doubt don't use them". But you're conflating two issues here. The strawman I'm after is the one erected in the FactCheck article which, in my view, inaccurately frames the debate by focusing on the extremes- a mistake I hope we can avoid here. Jpat34721 (talk) 20:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, I must disagree. There has been clear, unambiguous statements from various commentators that this incident has somehow exposed some giant conspiracy to hoodwink the people into thinking we are responsible for the recent acceleration in global warming. Some have even stated that there is no such acceleration. It is these commentators FactCheck is addressing. The "nuanced" position is not receiving coverage because the media doesn't want to hear about such subtlety. They want a good guy and a bad guy. Right and wrong. Black and white. For us or against us. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

A good point about the media. Hopefully we can do a better job. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Good points from both of you. I agree with Scjessey that the media all too often needs (or wants) to portray in black and white terms, rather than nuanced terms. While we are dependent on the media for RS, we don't have to fall into the bad habits, so I concur with JPat that we should hold ourselves to a higher standard.--SPhilbrickT 22:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Oddly enough, a criticism I've seen of McIntyre is that he makes a statement that is in itself nuanced, but makes no effort to curtail the excesses of those who pick up his statement to support their more extreme positions. That criticism is borne out by what i've seen of his recent statements on TV, but maybe they've been edited to keep the exciting bits and leave out the nuances. . . dave souza, talk 20:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Well said Scjessey - Anyone arguing that this e-mail shinanigans isn't being intentionally inflated by gw skeptics lacks a grasp on reality. FactCheck is NPOV here, and anyone who would nitpick its analysis to try and discredit it are as naughty as the original e-mail hackers themselves. NickCT (talk) 20:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll try and not take this as a personal attack, difficult as that may be. Regardless of what you think "the real story" is here, we need to present the facts in an unvarnished way. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

To Dave souza: he moderates the comment section on his blog to remove rabid meandering attacks on AGW, at least. I can't speak to his TV exposure because I've never seen any of it. Ignignot (talk) 21:02, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Jpat - What was a personal attack? The "lacks a grasp on reality" or "naughty" part? Either way, it wasn't meant as a personal attack and I think you're being a bit thin skinned if you're upset.

Oh, it takes a lot more than this to get me upset. A fair reading of your remarks I think would show that they were directed at me (as the one who "nitpicked" the FC article) and were not WP:AGF.Jpat34721 (talk) 22:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I entirely agree we have to present facts in an unvarnished way. But I think what you're calling "varnished" is driven by your own POV. You've already admitted that FactCheck is at least "usually" unbiased. Hence we're not quoting a blatantly biased source and it's ok for thier summary to be included. We're also not giving the summary as fact in the article, but simply attributing it to FactCheck so that users may decide whether our not they like the source. I find it difficult to find sympathy with your position.

On another note, I'd like to mention that I'm well aware the people on both side of this debate are capable of exagerations and inflations to try to sway public sentiment. I think an unbiased viewing of Inconvenient Truth will prove such. I know this is a tall order on wikipedia, but can we not just call a spade a spade? NickCT (talk) 21:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I think not. All we can do is find a reliable source that does so. Jpat34721 (talk) 22:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

FactCheck is not a primary news source. It should not be used as a reference at all. It gets its facts from other news sources, and cites them. To make this article better, we should not be using FactCheck as a crutch to do our work for us. TruthOutThere (talk) 9:01, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

See our no original research policy on this issue. We have to find attribution for analyses, producing a synthesis from primary sources is not "our work". Thanks, dave souza, talk 11:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

While I like the FactCheck article, and think it's highly relevant, I find some sympathy with TruthoutThere's sentiments. It seems to me awkward to devote such a large portion of an article to a single source's analysis. This isn't something you'd see in encyclopedia britanica. I wonder if the section can be pared down so that it maintains the content, but doesn't look like it was directly copy/pasted from FactCheck. NickCT (talk) 13:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Which large portion? Half of the paragraph cited above is a brief summary of the main points made by FactCheck, and is not a copy-paste. It's in reasonable proportion to other analyses. Britannica is unlikely to cover the issue until authoritative reports are published and the dust has settled, but then I'm not a subsriber to EB. . . dave souza, talk 13:15, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Point taken. I don't think this is necessarily wrong. It just seems a little awkward. NickCT (talk) 14:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Total violation of WP:FORUM...

...but a little levity will do us all no harm at all. Some YouTube global warming goodness. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Timeline v Timeline of the unauthorized publication

I prefer the former even though the latter was my edit. The reason I went with the more specific is that an open-ended Timeline section was an unending source of contention in another controversial page I worked on. All kinds of tiny details were put in (mostly to get a reference near the top for a juicy POV cite) moving the meat of the article further and further down the page. I'm not saying that would happen with this fine group of editors but down the road... Jpat34721 (talk) 15:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistency in # of documents

In the Timeline section we say 3000 other documents, in Content of the Documents we say 2000 documents. Perhaps the discrepancy is because the former includes programs while the latter does not but it is unclear. Can anyone straighten this out? Jpat34721 (talk) 17:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Corcoran

These edits by Jpat34721 are very problematic. Terence Corcoran is a known skeptic (see this source where he refers to Kyoto as "mind-blowing madness") writing an opinion piece for a conservative-leaning organ (The National Post) in an editorial section. This is compounded by original research from Jpat34721 like, "who has covered climate change for Financial Post for years". I expect these edits to be self-reverted pending a proper, consensus-building discussion. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm not to mention the misleading edit-comment "Flow", which to me indicates that someone is reordering some existing content, not inserting completely new text. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Look at the diff you refer to. It was a minor change related to flow. The original edit is further down Jpat34721 (talk) 23:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I stand corrected - it was a multi-diff. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:15, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

First off, if your view is that only "non-skeptics" (by your definition) are to be allowed here, our result will be by definition not POV neutral. Corcoran is well versed in the subject, is an editor at a major publication, has actually read the e-mails and written a well rounded and well researched article in a reliable source. Secondly, this section, which frames the debate on the e-mails needed balance. Only one side was presented. My "OR" is easily proved and I'll add a cite if you like but it seems pretty silly to me. Jpat34721 (talk) 23:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

But that is far removed from the "knowledgeable non-skeptic" for the "Financial Times" you originally portrayed him as. You should self revert your edits immediately. This sort of controversial, agenda-driven addition should be discussed on the talk page first. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

You mis-quote Corcoran above. From your reference, "Terence Corcoran disagreed in principle on Kyoto. Of Dion's plan, Corcoran wrote: "What we couldn't appreciate, until it was all assembled in a single monster document, is the mind-blowing madness behind Kyoto. Only by looking at the whole plan, half-baked though it is, does this mass exercise in collective insanity become clear." He was speaking of Dion's plan, not Kyoto itself. But again, lots of reasonable people (including 90+ US senators opposed Kyoto. It is not a litmus test for inclusion here. Nor would I agree with your assessment of Corcoran as a skeptic. Agnostic seems closer to the mark, and an agnostic is a non-skeptic. His objections have always been about the economic costs associated with mitigation.Jpat34721 (talk) 23:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Well I disagree. Your addition is controversial, and should be reverted pending proper discussion. It is also yet more unnecessary opinionated commentary, which this article is already overburdened with. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

And let's not joke about US Senators and their motivations. The US track record on international relations can only be described as awful. Climate change, war, international criminal court, UN fees, etc. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Please keep the discussion about this articles subject. Nsaa (talk) 01:48, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I thought that there was a general agreement that commentary and reactions from non-expert opinion sources should be limited? I fail to see Corcoran as anyone special with regards to opinion. He is certainly neither an expert nor in any way or form a noted columnist on the subject (ie. he is not referenced in secondary sources as such). (or can i insert commentary from selected columnist in Jyllands-Posten, Politiken or other notable Danish national news-papers)? Or is the "notable" here that he is a sceptic? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

He is an author and editor of a major publication. He has written voluminously on the subject. He debated the British High Commissioner on the subject for crying out loud. What special expertise can the author of the FactCheck piece claim?

This section frames the debate. Cocoran does an excellent job characterizing the overarching view of one side of the controversy which is what is needed to provide balance to this section. If you object to my source, find another one that can provide the needed balance and meets your standards and we'll talk. Jpat34721 (talk) 23:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Do secondary sources generally quote him as a notable columnist on this subject? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Do they quote Jessica Henig, author of the FactCheck piece (staff writer, BA in history)? Jpat34721 (talk) 00:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There appears to be consensus for including the FactCheck piece - which is more than can be said for Corcoran. Take it up on the FactCheck thread. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not debating the use of FC. I'm asking you to be even handed in the application of your standard.Jpat34721 (talk) 00:36, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I've now checked. Yes it does seem that FactCheck.org is considered a highly regarded source on all major news outlets (including FoxNews surprisingly) that i've checked. The same check for Corcoran is dismally small. [check was done with google for "factcheck.org site:<newsoutlet>" for instance CNN ] --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Bzzt. Apples and oranges. Either compare the Financial Post to FactCheck (both are WP:RS) or Corcoran to Henig. Jpat34721 (talk) 00:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry - but the Apples and Oranges seem to be in your court. Henig is (from what i can see) not writing an Opinion source, but writing under the full editorial guidence of FC. Corcoran is writing personal opinion. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC) [Nb: strangely enough FactCheck.org is cited significantly more than the Financial Post on the newsoutlets i checked --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:52, 9 January 2010 (UTC)]

Let's take a different tack. There are now three articles listed in debate framing paragraph, plus the IPCC chairman. Three of the four entries are dismissive of the controversy. Of the journalists mentioned, the writer of the AP article is mentioned in and authored some of the emails we are attempting to frame in this section, one is fresh out school with a BA in history, and one is an editor of a leading publication who has 35 years of journalistic experience. On what reasonable basis can you reject Corcoran and accept the other two?

Second, we're attempting to document a controversy here. Controversies have at least two sides. In this case, there's roughly three. (1) There's nothing to this. (2) The emails raise legitimate questions about process. (3)this proves global warming is a hoax. Without my insert, only (1) is represented in the paragraph that frames the controversy. How can this be called NPOV?

(3) is difficult to include in the framing because that view is mostly (wholly?) relegated to the blogs. Including (3) would (IMHO) also be inflammatory and undue weight. The Corcoran quote is solidly in (2) and without something akin to this, we have not framed the controversy, which by default, implies WP's position is (1) which violates POV. Jpat34721 (talk) 01:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Offer in Compromise

We replace the Corcran quote with this one from Roger Pielke Sr.

Both those who denounce “global warming” as a hoax and RealClimate’s claim that this is a “tempest in a teapot” are incorrect. With respect to the role of humans in the climate system, there is incontrovertible evidence that we exert both warming and cooling effects. The warming occurs through the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and certain aerosols, and cooling [occurs due to] other types of aerosols. Land use change due to human land management also effects warming and cooling forcings.

With respect to the RealClimate dismissal of the emails, however, there are serious issues exposed by the emails — including the goal of these scientists to prevent proper scientific disclosure of their data, as well as to control what papers appear in the peer reviewed literature and climate assessments. The IPCC assessment, with which major policy decisions are being made, involves the individuals in the emails who have senior leadership positions.

This frames the controversy and gives the balance I'm looking for. Professor Pielke is an atmospheric scientist at CIRES at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a professor emeritus at Colorado State University, and a former Colorado State climatologist. Jpat34721 (talk) 01:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I just don't see why we need more opinion in this already opinion-laden bloatfest. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Because without my edit or one like it, the opinion would be one-sided, at least in framing the debate. See my reasoning above. Jpat34721 (talk) 02:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

One-sided in your opinion. I reject your reasoning. Sorry, but you have to discuss these things before adding them if they are going to be so obviously contentious. I've removed the paragraph pending the outcome of this debate, particularly because of the errors in it and the aforementioned original research. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:05, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Jpat34721 on this one, for what it's worth, though I'm not sure he had to discuss his edit in advance in any case. (as an aside: given that we're including analyses/reactions from journalists and scientists implicated in the controversy, I don't see how it could be more controversial to include analyses/reactions from skeptics.) --Heyitspeter (talk) 17:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but we do not have to reach consensus before editing. See WP:BOLD,Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Edit warring is not going to resolve this. I'm trying to discuss this in good faith. Jpat34721 (talk) 02:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You are not discussing it in good faith. You did not seek consensus for your edit, which is error-laden and full of original research. You should immediately self-revert, as was requested earlier and on several occassions. Disgraceful, agenda-driven behavior. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Please point me to the WP policy which states I must get yours or (Kim's) permission to edit a page. Accusing and editor of bad faith is however in direct violation of WP:AGF. I have laid out a cohesive argument for my edit, offered a compromise and discussed this without vitriol. If you find errors in my edit, by all means fix them. If you have an OR issue, let's discuss it. Edit waring will get us no where.Jpat34721 (talk) 02:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that cohesive arguments have been made against your edit as well. There are enough opinion articles here, and as for "balance" that is still something to be discussed. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Show me one (other than the trivial OR issue that could be easily resolved) that doesn't amount to "it's controversial" (Duh, it's a controversy) or "we don't like your source" (but ours are just dandy). Oh, then there's the ever popular "I reject your reasoning". Now there's a cogent argument. Jpat34721 (talk) 03:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree on that, your compromise is just fine. Nsaa (talk) 02:03, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it is necessary. I think more debate is needed about whether or not this so called "balance" is needed before we even think about what to "balance" it with. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:07, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Because it have a critical comments of RealClimate? There's nearly only Whitewashing comments in that section, so yes this adds some more balance. Nsaa (talk) 02:27, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

As the compromise has only one user registering an objection, I've inserted it into the email intro and removed a similar quote from the same interview from the Reaction section to prevent undue weight issues. It is hard to understand how anyone could object to this since the quote, which was already an accepted part of the article, has been expanded to include his mainstream remarks re AWG. Jpat34721 (talk) 05:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I have just read the 2 Terence Corcoran pieces, they are probably the best summary of the climategate email contents that I have seen. Rejecting a reference to them because he is not notable or because he is a skeptic is nothing more than POV pushing. Instead, why not offer another reference that interprets the emails from the other point of view. In that way there will be a true balance. (Opinion pieces by people mentioned in the emails don't count for the same reasons that we don't let people write their own pages.) On the other hand, if there are specific errors in Corcoran's analysis, please point them out. Q Science (talk) 07:12, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Even more amazing since he is notable by any conceivable definition. Where he fits on the AGW zealotry spectrum is not an answerable question, but clearly the articles are well reasoned and thoughtful. Many here seem to think our job is to throw WP's weight behind a particular view rather to simply chronicle all sides of the issue using reputable sources. This seems to me especially important in the paragraph which is framing the debate. Jpat34721 (talk) 17:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

That would be just fine if it were in anyway true. Wikipedia is not supposed to "chronicle all sides" equally. WP:NPOV requires us to note all reasonable sides in reasonable proportion. There is an active debate over how much weight should be given to the "skeptical" side. Bear in mind that this entire controversy is fueled by those skeptical of AGW (very much a minority position) so it stands to reason that since the non-skeptical side is in the huge majority it should "get top billing" as it were. There's not going to be any 50:50 nonsense here, because that is just not a reasonable reflection of reality. Massive compromises have already been made to accommodate the desire of skeptics to make the "controversy" the central issue, but this is apparently still not enough for some. Your constant bleating about "framing the debate" seems to be more about framing it the way you like it. Nothing more is really going to happen until the results of the investigations start to filter in, so why not go and find somewhere else to play for a bit? -- Scjessey (talk) 17:47, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Their were no opposing views presented in the paragraph before my edit. Your stance that that is perfectly acceptable is quite odd since if there was no significant opposing view out there, we wouldn't have a controversy. Clearly we do have a controversy (otherwise we're all wasting our time), clearly it is not just sceptics that are concerned by the contents of these emails, your contentions notwithstanding, and clearly the other side deserves some ink in the paragraph which is attempting to frame the issue. The current scorecard in that section is 3 to 1 in your favor. Doesn't that feel about right to you? Jpat34721 (talk) 18:08, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You also misquote WP:NPOV, which says "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints", bolding mine. Your spin on NPOV above would indicate that you think it is our job to pass judgment on the "reasonableness" of a viewpoint but of course reasonable men will always disagree about that. If we stick to [[WP::NPOV]] emphasis on significance, reaching consensus will be a lot easier. Jpat34721 (talk) 18:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No, you have it all wrong. "Clearly we have a controversy" because skeptics have made it so, but blowing up this molehill into a mountain. It is through the efforts of folks like you that this controversy has reached the significance that it has. I am disinclined to sit still while skeptics attempt to use Wikipedia to pile even more bullshit on top of that mountain. And I didn't "quote" NPOV - I wrote my own words that reflected the spirit of the policy. The key to this is weight, and the pile on your side is too heavy. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:22, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Mountain or molehill frames the controversy we are trying to chronicle perfectly. It is not for us to decide the issue, it is our job to inform the reader about the significant arguments on all sides. You comments re NPOV show that you have a fundamental misunderstanding "of "the spirit of the policy". Jpat34721 (talk) 18:36, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it is our job to inform the reader about the significant arguments of all sides in the proper proportion, which is the qualifier you seem to be having issues with. If you spent any significant time editing elsewhere on Wikipedia, you would have a better grasp of these policies. Limiting yourself to one article makes it much harder. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Should be just fine, for reasons stated above. However, I'm not sure it's necessary to include its "I'm not a skeptic!" intro. I'd be fine with including it if people would rather. --Heyitspeter (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

When I did the edit, I shortened the quote substantially. I wanted to leave in the "both are wrong" part because we are trying to frame the debate. I cut out the explanation of the warming (not necessary, available elsewhere) and then picked it up again with his discussion of the email's implication for the process. Comments welcome. Jpat34721 (talk) 17:44, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

ScJessey: It's true that GW skepticism is a minority among scientists. But this assertion is less true among politicians, and not true at all among the public (at least in the US and UK). I have two issues with your weight argument. The first is that this controversy involves scientists, politicians, and the media, and it's less clear that in that audience skepticism is such a minority. Secondly, the question here isn't the relative proportion of skeptics to not, but the proportion of people who think this is a controversy to not. We know there are individuals who are not skeptics who still have expressed concerns about this controversy. So my question would be: what evidence do you have that the opinion of the emails being controversial is in the minority in reliable sources? Oren0 (talk) 18:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

POV Flag

It seems to me that since the POV flag went up on the article and probation started, there have been vast improvements in the content of the article and the civility in this talk page. Therefore I wonder if there is still any cause to have the POV flag up. What issues, specifically, remain? Ignignot (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Just for the sake of adding my two cents; I don't see any reason for the flag to remain. NickCT (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The relative stability of this article is a strong indicator that the POV flag is no longer necessary. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Great work, guys. It's looking really very good now. --Nigelj (talk) 20:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the trajectory is excellent but in my view removing the tag is a bit premature. There are a couple of thorny issues yet to be tackled (the section on code is a big one). I'd hate to see the good will on exhibit here be spoiled by someone feeling the need to reinsert the tag down the road. Just my 2 centavos Jpat34721 (talk) 20:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I also think it might be a little premature, but it was not immediately obvious what was drawing the POV flag. Since one of our todo list items is to find consensus on this issue, it might be useful to have the POV issues explicitly listed. If we can't find anything then I would obviously support the flag removal. Ignignot (talk) 20:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't really see anything of value in the code section at all. I'd just delete the section entirely. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

See? :>) Actually, I view the code section as a stub. It needs a lot of work but in my view, ignoring the code controversy all together would be a mistake. Jpat34721 (talk) 20:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

What "code controversy" are you referring to? -- Scjessey (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Google 'climategate code'. In a nutshell, many computer scientists who have examined the code are appalled at its quality and at the many undocumented fudge factors used to adjust the raw data. The question is, was this just throw away code or was it used to draw or influence any of the conclusions reached by CRU or the IPCC. Some say yes, some say no. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:12, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that any of this code was actually used? I've got thousands of lines of code on my hard drive that I've never deployed because it was development code, or experimentation. I'm seeing a section that speculates about the quality of code that may or may not have been used. There's no way to know if that code is a "representative sample" of the kind of code being used either. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The way I look at it, stories about the code are already out there. People can come to wikipedia and read the concerns about the code along with notice that it's unknown if the code was actually used, or they can see nothing here about the code and be left with whatever impression they got from some web site.--Magicjava (talk) 09:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm dubious of the methodology here: while Jpat34721, or anybody else worldwide, can point to something s/he "takes issue with" or is "bothered by", anywhere in the text, in the list below, we have to keep the POV tag? By that logic it should be easy enough for anybody to get every article on WP so tagged, surely? --Nigelj (talk) 20:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not how it is supposed to work. The tag is supposed to be used when there is an ongoing dispute about neutrality being worked out. There is no conceivable way that everyone is going to be happy with this article because of their own ideologies and biases, so it can get to the point where it is nothing more than a badge of shame. I firmly believe that we are beyond the "dispute" stage, and the tag can be removed. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I in no way meant to imply that my views have any more weight than any other editor here. We were asked if we would support the tag removal. I would not and gave my reasons why. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) The methodology is to just see what people still think are POV issues, and if those issues are enough to keep a POV warning tag on it article. As I said, it has definitely improved, I don't know if it has improved enough, and I don't think there is any discussion on what we can do to narrow this down. So let's talk. Perhaps my comment, "if we can't find anything then I would obviously support the flag removal," taken narrowly, might imply that I would not support it unless no one has a problem with anything. What I am looking for is if "a consensus among the editors that the NPOV disputes have indeed been resolved," (from the NPOV dispute page) already exists, and if not, why not. Ignignot (talk) 21:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. Remove the POV tag. Everyone who disagrees that it's biased has been chased away by multiple reverts and heaps of scorn and an aplphabet soup of accusations. Reliable Source discussions of bias in this article by the mainstream media have been successfully excluded even from the talk pages, and the chorus is finally in tune. Stick a BLP tag on the top, throw in a few quotes from Al Gore, and it's ready for prime time! /saracsm Nightmote (talk) 21:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't know what you're trying to say here other than maybe, "this is still not neutral". Ignignot (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Any fool can get consensus among those who already agree. Nightmote (talk) 21:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

You are too kind. I don't yet share your optimism that I am up to the task. Ignignot (talk) 22:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Har! Very good, except for the coffee through my nose part Jpat34721 (talk) 22:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is alomst irretrieveably broken. The AGW crowd are determined to avoid the use of the word "Climategate" for fear that someone, somewhere, might think that one of the water-walking sainted scientists might have done something wrong. This depite the fact that half of the world uses the term and every hit this article gets comes from a re-direct from "Climategate". The skeptics are bound and determined to include a declaration that " ... this is it - Global Warming is a hoax!" William Connelly - who is mentioned by name in the damned emails - is editing this article. Everybody who has ever *experienced* weather has been quoted in this bloated son-of-a-bitch, including dead people and barn animals. If I were in charge of this steaming afterbirth, I'd fire you all every writer and hire retarded monkeys with carpal tunnel to do the re-write. It's an embarrassment. A (deleted) embarrassment! And if this is the best we can come up with, then Wikipedia has well and truly jumped the shark. I'm avidly following this article with the same morbid curiosity I might exhibit whilst walking past a burning train wreck, and it still has the capacity to surprise me. By all means remove the POV tag, but don't imagine that the Badge of Shame has gone anywhere. Nightmote (talk) 23:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Well if that is the standard of debate, we're not going to get anywhere. Mostly because anybody with an IQ in double figures would rather do something else with their free time than engage with that. I thought there was some kind of admin system around here meant to improve the working environment? --Nigelj (talk) 15:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Admins block vandals, protect heavily vandalised pages, delete nonsense articles, and so on. What admin action are you requesting? Evercat (talk) 15:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I think he means the article probation thing. Guettarda (talk) 16:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Having not followed the article for the past week, it seems the it still suffers from the same POV issues I mentioned a month or two ago.

First, there's the POV title of the article. "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" gives undue weight to the hacking incident which is just a small part of the story. The majority of reliable sources are focusing the controversy that the e-mails generated. I suggest a neutral title such as "Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy", "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy" or "Climatic Research Unit data release controversy".

Second, there's the undue weight given to the death threats in the lede. Are the death threats noteworthy enough to include in the article. Yes, absolutely. Are they noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the lede? Absolutely not. Most reliable sources hardly even mention this. It simply appears to be a way for AGW proponents to play the victim card.

Third, there's the new POV violation with the "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change" bit. The term Climategate is used all over the media, not just by AGW skeptics.

And that's just the lede. I'll drop by in a few days or so and see if any progress has been made. Now back to the regularly schedule insanity. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I might add the absurdly-overweight "Similar incident" section with the loon at University of Victoria. SFAICT, this was a routine campus-burglary series (all over the campus), compounded by publicity-seeking (or whatever) by wossisname. I see it's been shrunk a bit -- certainly doesn't merit a section. Discussed in a couple of the archives; never a consensus to retain. Past news & irrelevant to this event, except in the mind of Prof Weaver. Prev. discussed here and here. --Pete Tillman (talk) 17:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. It seems completely appropriate and relevant, despite the spin you apply to the incident. It gives the CRU incident a little bit of context, and seems perfectly weighted. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

POV issue list

Now that we're getting close, here's a section to list remaining concerns.

• I still take issue with 'dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change' in the lead. Acoorded to Webster's dubbed = "to call by a distinctive title, epithet, or nickname". One can find many cases where the nickname is used by AWG proponents. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

"Dubbed by" is a compromise that no one will be 100% with. I would prefer Climategate not be in the lead at all, as it's inherently POV. You want the lead to say "CLIMATEGATE IS THE NAME OF THIS SCANDAL WHICH DISPROVES GLOBAL WARMING." You need to try to find middle ground. Please try to do so, as opposed to attempting to win every single disagreement. Hipocrite (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite, this comment is just inflammatory. Please be careful. Let's keep this discussion constructive.--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Please avoid putting words in my mouth. I am on record agreeing with your stated preference (leaving out the neologism altogether) or going with the simple ("Climategate") construct. BTW, here's another reference from a reliable source (Financial Times), written by a knowledgeable non-skeptic (Terence Cochran) who starts his article 'In the thousands of emails released last month in what is now known as Climategate', no quotes, no mealy mouthing, just states the fact that it is "now known as Climategate". FT article.Jpat34721 (talk) 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Jeez. That's complete nonsense, I'm afraid. It's not the Financial Times at all. It's an editorial in the finance section of the National Post, and it's part 2 of an opinion piece by a known skeptic (see this source, where Terence Corcoran trashes Kyoto). Wrong newspaper, wrong country, wrong characterization of writer, wrong spelling of writer (but I assume that's just a spelling mistake). -- Scjessey (talk) 22:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the articles we're written for the Financial Post (where corcoran is an editor), as a news article. Nothing in your response address the issue which is you keep saying that no reliable sources use Climategate, I keep proving you wrong, and you find spelling errors.Jpat34721 (talk) 22:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I've addressed your edits in a new section below. The edit summary about "balance" must've meant to be ironic. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite, in further response to your non-WP:AGF remarks above, I would point out that you have no faint idea what my POV re AGW is (although I'll tell you it is much more nuanced than you imply). If you will review my edits (e.g. this one), you'll see I have bolstered both sides. I think Dave souza and I would disagree about much and yet we've worked constructively together. We all want to get rid of the tag and we all want to create something of value here. Lets lower our voices and work together in good faith towards that end Jpat34721 (talk) 22:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. First, because we can do better. It's actually called Climategate by many skeptics and non-skeptics alike. Telling people what the controversy is called is more important than telling people who thought up the name (e.g., knowing that Watergate is called "Watergate" is more useful than knowing of who named it). Further, it's contradicted by this RS: [1]. We need a compromise edit.--Heyitspeter (talk) 05:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change" is clumsy and looks like it's part of an edit war. At the very least, a cleaner phrase should be used. Just calling it Climategate is the cleanest of all, IMHO. It's what everyone calls it.--Magicjava (talk) 08:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

May I direct your attention here.--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

• I am still bothered that our first "meaty" reference is the AP story whose lead author is implicated in the controversy and whose main point, the views of the 3 scientists, are contradicted or at least clarified elsewhere. I'm happy that my edit to the WashTimes story was allowed to stand but surely we can find a less tainted source that makes the same point being cited. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The AP author is not implicated in anything. Because some blogs misunderstand how journalists interact with sources does not mean that you should let them guide your editing. Hipocrite (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

He is in the emails multiple times. Revkin stepped down from the NYT and his involvement was much less controversial. We can find a better source.Jpat34721 (talk) 22:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Your second point seems to be about sourcing, where you would leave the content unchanged. Surely that is not a POV issue but just a question of getting better citations? Ignignot (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

My position is that leading with such a one-sided and tainted reference is indeed POVJpat34721 (talk) 21:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I am now satisfied with the balance in this paragraph, assuming inclusion of either the Pielke or Corcoran quote and the clarifying remarks of the 3 scientists polled in the AP article. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• there's the POV title of the article. "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" gives undue weight to the hacking incident which is just a small part of the story. The majority of reliable sources are focusing the controversy that the e-mails generated. I suggest a neutral title such as "Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy", "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy" or "Climatic Research Unit data release controversy". (copied here from [User|A Quest For Knowledge] comments above])

Agree From [[WP::NPOV]]

Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. ...Neutral titles encourage multiple viewpoints and responsible article writing. JPatterson 22:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• undue weight given to the death threats in the lede. Are the death threats noteworthy enough to include in the article. Yes, absolutely. Are they noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the lede? Absolutely not. Most reliable sources hardly even mention this. It simply appears to be a way for AGW proponents to play the victim card. (copied here from [User|A Quest For Knowledge] comments above])

Agree JPatterson 22:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

Major structural change

I propose that we do away with the "Calls for inquiries" section, merging all the material into "Responses to the incident". Having a Calls for inquiries section is a legacy from the first days after the incident, when scientists and commentators had not had much time to respond, and UEA had yet to announce their enquiry. Now we have the benefit of hindsight, we can put the calls for enquiries into the context of responses generally. Comments? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

At some point, in hopefully the not too distant future, the inquiries that have been called will be returning some statements, results or reports. These we will certainly need to cover here. So, while I agree that the present heading is out of date, I suggest keeping the present coverage separate from other responses, maybe with a heading of simply "Inquiries", so that the results can be inserted there too? Only a thought. --Nigelj (talk) 16:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

A good thought.--SPhilbrickT 22:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Captious Introduction

I think there is a malicious association in the first sentence The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change relegating the use of the expression Climategate to climate change skeptics. It implicitly conveys the idea that anyone referring to the case as a scandal (as a name like Climategate relates) is to be suspicious of being a climate change skeptic trying to discredit the Climate Change Theory. Heathmoor (talk) 11:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The use of the term "dubbed" (which I personally dislike) is significant here. What the sentence is saying is that skeptics of anthropogenic climate change gave the incident the "Climategate" moniker in the first place. It does not say that these same individuals/organizations are the exclusive users of that term, so the sentence is fine as it stands. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

except that dubbed does not imply origin. According to Websters it means "to call by a distinctive title, epithet, or nickname". Thus our intro implies that only sceptics use the term "climategate", which is clearly false. Jpat34721 (talk) 18:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No, your interpretation is flawed. Even our own Wiktionary understands the term better than you do, it seems. Being an article about a British incident, perhaps the OED definition is most appropriate, which definitely implies origin. Now I understand what was meant by "attempting to win every disagreement." You have to argue absolutely everything, don't you? -- Scjessey (talk) 18:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You are being unnecessarily contentious here. It wasn't my interpretation, it was Websters. It seems the OED and Websters disagree. I accept the OED definition. Now you have the problem of providing a definitive WP:RS cite that documents the origin. As you well know, there are multiple, conflicting claims about who coined the term. Jpat34721 (talk) 19:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

But every single one of them comes from one AGW skeptic or another, so let's not be unnecessarily contentious about it. Do you really think it was coined by someone who supports the science of AGW? Of course you don't. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, I don't see the term through the same partisan lenses that you do. It seems benign to me. It is true that -gate implies scandal but hacking is a scandal, it could apply equally well to your POV. That being said, your position is clearly OR. If for example, we are to believe it started with a post on a blog, how are we to know the bloggers view on AWG? I've blogged on RC before, does that make you like me more :>) JPatterson 07:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

I don't see anything through a "partisan lens". I am only interested in making sure Wikipedia articles remain neutral. "Climategate" is not, and never will be, a non-neutral term for this incident. Any use of the word must be explained to ensure Wikipedia isn't seen to be advocating its use. That's a non-negotiable position based on Wikipedia policy. You seem determined to bring up the word "scandal" at every opportunity, even using "hacking" as a justification for using it. Then you turn around and accuse me of original research because of my "position". I've no interest in global warming whatsoever, and I've never participated in any discussion about it in any forum until I was prompted to visit this article by a thread on WP:ANI. I'm here to contribute to Wikipedia, not promote an agenda. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, sources from all parts of the political spectrum call it "Climategate". How the name came about isn't particularly interesting, just as they're not particularly interesting in any other -gate topic wiki covers. None of these other -gate topics have a discussion on how the name came about, and putting one here is probably undue weight. Again, as the article stands now, it reads like an edit war. There just seems to be phrases thrown in because one side or the other feels it's important to their cause, not because they're central to the issue. --Magicjava (talk) 19:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The entire introduction shows the strains from the battles between skeptics and believers. Perhaps it would be best to simply edit out all contentious material in the introduction and stick to the core facts? Perhaps something like this:

The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, aka "Climategate", came to light in November 2009 with the unauthorized release of thousands of e-mails and other documents from a server owned by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England. Allegations were made that the e-mails showed climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific information, interfered with the peer-review process to prevent dissenting scientific papers from being published, deleted e-mails and raw data to prevent data being revealed under the Freedom of Information Act, and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is. On November 24, the University of East Anglia announced that an independent review of the allegations would be carried out by Sir Muir Russell and subsequently announced that the CRU's director, Professor Phil Jones, would stand aside from his post during the review.

And move the rest to the body. Also, is there any independent confirmation that the material was hacked or are we taking Gavin Schmidt's word for this? --Magicjava (talk) 06:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Your proposal gives undue weight to the accusations, which are a minority or fringe view in terms of science, and does not present the majority view. If stripping it down, we should simply say that "Various accusations have been made that the emails reveal improper behaviour by the scientists, these accusations have been rebutted by the university and the scientists concerned. On November 24....." Can't say that aka "Climategate" works well for me, it's clearly a partisan label and should be described as such from the outset. . . dave souza, talk 07:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed to much space given to accusations, it's a bit rambling. I like your version, "Various accusations have been made that the emails reveal improper behaviour by the scientists", better. From there, just mention the independent review.

"Various accusations" is a nebulous phrase that imparts no information. The controversy isn't about various accusations, it's about specific ones. If this was an article about the recent Tiger Woods incident, we wouldn't say "various accusations have been made", implying perhaps that he fudged his score card. JPatterson 00:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I see your point, but still think the current into is too long and that part sounds like it was written by angry skeptics. Is there anyway to address the seriousness of the allegations in a more succinct way?--Magicjava (talk) 10:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

But this is different from "undue weight", I believe. The accusations have been made and it's not for the scientists to declare themselves found innocent. That is why there are ongoing investigations. As to use of Climategate, even The BBC and The Guardian use that term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magicjava (talk • contribs) 07:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)--Magicjava (talk) 07:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't bother with the link for once, but WP:UNDUE has a specific requirements about making appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and not presenting a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view. The relevant views are expert opinion on the science, not uninformed politicians, and therefore misleading accusations must be shown in context. In the interim, my proposal appears to have attracted some support, so rather than burden the lead with specific rebuttals to each point, I've implemented the proposed short wording above. Note that it's not just "various accusations", it's accusations of "improper behaviour by the scientists". Proposals for alternative phrasing will be welcome. . . dave souza, talk 11:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

We had reached consensus on the lead days ago. This proposed change was disputed above. "Varoius allegations" is nebulous. You've removed all information about the actual allegations from the lead and rendered it worthless. I've rv back to the original pending further discussion. JPatterson (talk) 17:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I've tried to tone down the lead with this edit. Comments welcome JPatterson (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find the majority viewpoint is regarding the science overall, not the legality or ethics of the particular scientists involved in this incident. Demonstrating that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, for instance, doesn't demonstrate that Phil Jones acted ethically in all of this. And, again, the scientists involved can't credibly declare their own innocence. With these new edits, the one part that looked like it was written by the skeptics has been taken out and it now looks like it was completely written by believers. Would suggest removing "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change", the part about the death threats, and the part about scientists declaring themselves to be found innocent. We'd then have something like this: "The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, came to light in November 2009 with the unauthorised release of thousands of e-mails and other documents obtained through the alleged [there's no proof of this] hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England. The University of East Anglia described the incident as an illegal taking of data. Law enforcement agencies [which ones?] are investigating the matter as a crime.

Various accusations have been made [put 3 or so citations here] that the emails revealed improper behaviour [or whatever phrase best describes the incident] by the scientists. On November 24, the University of East Anglia announced that an independent review of the allegations would be carried out by Sir Muir Russell and subsequently announced that the CRU's director, Professor Phil Jones, would stand aside from his post during the review."''

The incident is sometimes referred to as "Climategate",[put 3 or so citations here] following the "gate" nickname construction that became popular in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magicjava (talk • contribs) 17:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Also, the intro now has zero citations.--Magicjava (talk) 17:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Intros don't need citations - they merely summarize information that is cited below. Hipocrite (talk) 17:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, as per WP:LEAD: "The lead must conform to verifiability and other policies. The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations, should be cited."--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

P.P.S.Also, while I hope to contribute to this article in a meaningful way, it needs to be pointed out that my account here is what I believe is called a "single edit account", meaning I'm only working on this article and have no real history of being editing wikipedia. These facts rightfully imply that less weight be given to my opinions than to the opinions of some of the more experienced editors. This should apply both when someone agrees with me and when someone disagrees. In short, I would recommend rewriting the article just on my say-so.--Magicjava (talk) 18:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Typo above. I wouldn't recommend rewriting the article just on my say-so.--Magicjava (talk) 18:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Harry_Read_Me.txt

Here are some of the more brow raising excerpts from the Harry_README.txt file which is a chronological documentation of the programmers (presumably CRU's Ian "Harry" Harris) efforts to untwist the CRU programs and databases

I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation - apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps? Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too. Meh.

I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight... So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!

One thing that's unsettling is that many of the assigned WMo codes for Canadian stations do not return any hits with a web search. Usually the country's met office, or at least the Weather Underground, show up – but for these stations, nothing at all. Makes me wonder if these are long-discontinued, or were even invented somewhere other than Canada!

Knowing how long it takes to debug this suite - the experiment endeth here. The option (like all the anomdtb options) is totally undocumented so we'll never know what we lost. 22. Right, time to stop pussyfooting around the niceties of Tim's labyrinthine software suites - let's have a go at producing CRU TS 3.0! since failing to do that will be the definitive failure of the entire project.

Ulp! I am seriously close to giving up, again. The history of this is so complex that I can't get far enough into it before by head hurts and I have to stop. Each parameter has a tortuous history of manual and semi-automated interventions that I simply cannot just go back to early versions and run the update prog. I could be throwing away all kinds of corrections - to lat/lons, to WMOs (yes!), and more. So what the hell can I do about all these duplicate stations?...

source Note that this is a different issue than the code itself, which has been criticized but as of yet, not tied to any CRU work product. The readme however talks about the sorry state of "our flagship product" and "rest of the databases", etc. I would like to start a consensus discussion about how we should handle this part of the controversy fairly. JPatterson 23:07, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

How is a five-paragraph quote compatible with fair use and our non-free content policy? Guettarda (talk) 04:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There are no fair use issues- it is a tiny percentage of the total document, it is being used for legitimate critical and analysis to enrich the general public, our use does does not supersede the ideas presented, and has no effect in its value. It passes all four factors of the balancing test. Which of the 10 criteria of WP:NFCC do you see as an issue? I see none. JPatterson 07:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

Four paragraphs without critical commentary? It's not the proportion of the work, it's the amount of material. As for the NFCC criteria - how about #9? Guettarda (talk) 14:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Look it up, it's the amount relative to the size of the work (that's why WP is not WP:RC :>). And they're not paragraphs, they're excepts scattered throughout the document. Besides they're taken verbatim from the CBS news website (one presumes they have pretty good lawyers familiar with FU issues). I don't understand your point on NFCC 9. We are working on an article which is explicitly permitted. 75.106.249.239 (talk) 15:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a massive quote, without critical commentary. And there's no suggestion of how this might be used to improve the article. Guettarda (talk) 20:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a notable part of the controversy and deserves to be covered. I'm not proposing we use the full quote. I'm thinking we acknowledge its existence and explain what it is (fully sourced of course), add a few excepts that highlight the primary concern that's been raised (integrity of the data and data adjustments prior to Jan 2006), and provide as much of the RC/CRU stuff that dave uncovered to provide context and balance. Want to take a crack at it? JPatterson 23:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

But you're using it here. And the same rules apply to the use of non-free content. Guettarda (talk) 15:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• To quote RealClimate,[2] "HARRY_read_me.txt. This is a 4 year-long work log of Ian (Harry) Harris who was working to upgrade the documentation, metadata and databases associated with the legacy CRU TS 2.1 product, which is not the same as the HadCRUT data (see Mitchell and Jones, 2003 for details). The CSU TS 3.0 is available now (via ClimateExplorer for instance), and so presumably the database problems got fixed. Anyone who has ever worked on constructing a database from dozens of individual, sometimes contradictory and inconsistently formatted datasets will share his evident frustration with how tedious that can be." We should make it clear that HadCRUT is the dataset of monthly temperature records formed by combining the sea surface temperature records compiled by the Hadley Centre of the Met Office and the land surface temperature records compiled by the CRU, and the legacy CRU TS 2.1 product is not the same thing. HadCRUT3 is available from the Met Office.[3] "without charge for the purposes of private study and scientific research, but please read the terms and conditions." For what it's worth, Reddit comments on the issue, "The final output of the code was published in a peer-reviewed journal quite a while afterward. It did not include any of the "controversial" sections of code in the original buggy work! It did not include the outputs that these code sections would have given, either!..... The most "controversial" sections of code were commented out, and were likely just debugging tools.... these sections of the code did not appear in the final product" It also notes that "almost all peer-reviewed articles, such as this one by Mann in Nature, include data freely available.(Just click "Retrieve Data"). Besides the climate model codes shared at the Real Climate link above on data, note that almost all model codes are made public, like NASA's here." . dave souza, talk 07:08, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Old code is still relevant, as the Global Warming issue has been going on for 20 years. How long was the public given climate information based on code that had serious problems? Also, the use of the word "buggy code" is vague. Code that deliberately increases temperatures by 0.5 degrees isn't "buggy", but without a good explanation of why it's raising temperatures 0.5 degrees, most people would not consider such code legitimate. --Magicjava (talk) 08:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like original research on you part: please find and cite reliable sources for your suppositions. Also note that most people would consider that misrepresenting testing code as the final product [in use] was a smear campaign, which is why we need a good well sourced explanation of such code before presuming that it's not "legitimate". . dave souza, talk 10:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC) clarified 11:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to propose we not get sidetracked with OR, FU etc. until we have reached consensus on whether we should include something on this issue and we have some proposed text to shoot at. OR at this point in the discussion seems perfectly ok, in relation to the question of relevancy. We just need to be careful that none of it slips into the finally text.75.106.249.239 (talk) 15:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

What changes to the article are you proposing? And upon what reliable sources are these based? Guettarda (talk) 20:14, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

No, not original research. You can find it here. Though I was wrong in saying it's 0.5 degree artifical increase. It's 0.25 degrees. --Magicjava (talk) 20:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Who's Robert Greiner, and why should we consider him an expert source on the topic? Guettarda (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Greiner's a professional software developer with a degree in physics. Also, NOAA admits to manually adjusting the data in a similar way, see here (this is where the 0.5 degrees upward adjustment came from).--Magicjava (talk) 03:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean what sort of relevant expertise does he have here? Since this is coming from a blog, the only way that the author would be considered a reliable source is if they are an expert on this subject. So what makes him an expert? Has he published on this topic? Can you provide some links to his publications on the topic, or to his professional CV? Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 07:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Answering this below, so we don't get the topic split into two. --Magicjava (talk) 10:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

And who in their right mind would use a non-notable blog as a source for anything anyway? -- Scjessey (talk) 20:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The Watt's Up blog has been referenced by major news outlets many times over the years. --Magicjava (talk) 03:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

But it's still just a blog. What makes it a reliable source on this subject? Guettarda (talk) 07:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not, obviously. Magicjava, please go and read WP:SPS. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I did some more research on this and believe it meets both reliable source in general and WP:SPS in particular. The article has been published by the news site News Buster here, which means WP:SPS shouldn't be an issue as it's been published by a third party news organization. It has also been referenced by the San Francisco Environmental Policy Examiner (which wiki is blocking for some reason) and the Herald Sun (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/climategate_an_australian_link), both of which are news blogs which I believe meet wiki's reliable source guidelines. This along with the fact that the original author is a professional computer programmer, a scientist, and an AGW agnostic, that it appeared on Watt's Up which has a long history of posting reliable information that meets the professional standards of news organizations, and that the article itself publishes the code it discusses seem to add up to a reliable, newsworthy source. --Magicjava (talk) 10:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Neither of these are reliable sources (especially not the heavily partisan Newsbusters), and the blog certainly isn't. So we have an unqualified opinion from a blogger, essentially. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd count them as reliable sources for the opinion of the blogger. The question is why we would be interested in the opinion of the blogger. Can you provide a link establishing him as an expert on this topic - such as a book published by a major publisher, or a number of peer-reviewed publications on this topic, or something of similar calibre? Guettarda (talk) 15:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I suppose I could email him and ask, but at this point, I'll just let it slide. However, I do want to make a quick note on where I was going with this. The information is already widely dispersed on the net (see here, here, here, here, here, here, www.prisonplanet.com/climategate-the-smoking-code.html here], and here for just a few additional examples), and so should probably be dealt with in this article. The adjustments being made to the temps look suspiciously like the warming being claimed by the believers. And if someone also stumbles across this adjustment curve it starts to look something like a conspiracy. I think the issues this raises need to be discussed and the scientific reasoning behind these types of curves needs to be presented. A good place to start might be Dr. Karl's Time of Observation adjustments methodology, here. It's this methodology that gives these adjustments their distinct "global warming" appearance. --Magicjava (talk) 00:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Magicjava, if you are citing Conservapedia as a source you really are in the wrong encyclopedic project. We have rather higher standards than those nutjobs, believe it or not. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not using any of those 8 links as a "source". I'm merely pointing out that this information is widely available on the net and that someone just reading this article could easily think these adjustments are being made to manually create global warming. That is why I'm recommending dealing with the issue and referencing the scientific literature that discusses why these types of curves are added to the raw data. --Magicjava (talk) 01:04, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• This June 2008 data sheet from CRU states that "From the beginning of January 2006, we have replaced the various grid-box temperature anomaly (from the base period 1961-90) datasets with new versions, HadCRUT3 and CRUTEM3 (see Brohan et al., 2006). The datasets have been developed in conjunction with Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office.... The earlier versions (HadCRUT2 and CRUTEM2 and their variance adjusted versions) can be found here. They are no longer being updated." Links are given for downloading the data from the Hadley Centre. The Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets page has a link to their CRUTEM3 dataset page. . . . dave souza, talk 14:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Rename redux

The title of this article refers specifically/exclusively to a "hacking incident," which is unacceptable because its wording a) invalidates a lot of current and valuable article content, and b) is independently disputed:

a) much of the reaction section consists of climatologists pointing out that the science stands, that skeptics are wrong in their interpretations of the contents of the e-mails, that there are other institutes operating independently of the CRU that can give accounts of climate change that we can trust, etc. These are reactions to a controversy, to allegations, not to hackers or a hacking incident. These responses are worth keeping for the same reason the current article title is worth disposing of. The hacking incident isn't WP:notable when taken by itself. Hacks are carried out all the time. What's notable are the circumstances surrounding the extraction of data.

b) a skim through the archives will yield many, many disputes over the use of the term "hack" to describe the incident. Even when the term is mentioned in the article it nearly always comes with qualifiers like "allegedly" or "reported." Given these circumstances, including the term "hacking" in the article title is pretty silly.

For reasons (a) and (b) we need a new title. I suggest Climatic Research Unit documents controversy. Note that while I like this proposed title I'm not attached to it in particular. If you feel you have a better option I'd love to hear it. I just want something better than what we have. Thanks.--Heyitspeter (talk) 06:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Please discuss the shortcomings of Wikipedia elsewhere. - 2/0 (cont.) 01:02, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This isn't the only AGW articles that is POV in its naming. Wikipedia sucks; no control over content. CONSENSUS sucks; it encourages tag-teaming and forming groups to manufacture "consensus". That's all. • Ling.Nut 07:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Does your comment help build consensus, Ling.Nut? Hipocrite (talk) 07:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC) No, in fact my comment explicitly rejects CONSENSUS in a limited number of cases.. My comment suggest that in content disputes as virulent and prolonged as this one, WP:CONSENSUS has no magic powers; in fact it is counter-productive, because it very strongly encourages the formation of tag-team gangs of bullies etc. (no accusations meant here). • Ling.Nut 07:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC) No, it would be totally inappropriate of you to accuse the hordes of new single purpose accounts of being directed off-wiki. Hipocrite (talk) 08:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to request this move in >24 hours barring reasonable objections.--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can people please stop requesting pointless moves taht clearly have no consensus and won't happen William M. Connolley (talk) 08:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Let's wait until some investigations have concluded before revisiting the article title. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Other editors aside, what do you, Connolley and Scjessey, think? Do you think the proposed title would be alright?--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It is marginally better than what we have in that it acknowledges the existence of a controversy, which I think is important; however, it is nowhere near as good as Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy (because the theft is the genesis of the controversy). All that being said, I still think it would be best to leave this issue aside for the time being. Let's allow more information, particularly from the investigations, to filter in before we bring this up again. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

From [[WP::NPOV]]: Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. Are you seriously contending the current title gets over this high bar? Self-appointed "keeps of the flame" seem intent on telling readers what the controversy is (it's a tempest in a teapot / it's the greatest scientific scandal in history that proves AWG is a fraud) instead of what the controversy is about- allegations of scientific misconduct that are refuted by those implicated. Like it or not, the controversy, as it evolved in the media, focused on the allegations and the defense of them, and not on the hacking itself. The current title, besides containing unsupportable OR, gives undue weight to the hacking which has receded to a tiny part of the controversy. JPatterson (talk) 16:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

This article's title is fine as it is. There is no reason to change it. This article is not about 'allegations', because the allegations have been made by loonies and loopies who don't understand what they're reading, but are more than happy to amplify the ultra-right political nonsense of the Big Oil-funded denial industry. The most that is at stake here is the future career prospects of 3 - 4 employees of CRU. That is not a worldwide scandal, but is very important under our WP:BLP policy. Therefore, we are not here to propagate and elaborate these off-the-wall 'allegations', whatever blog started them, or political op-ed picked them up. All will be clear when the inquiries are in, and we'll report that. --Nigelj (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Compromise on "Climategate" in lead

Hey all. An attempted compromise edit was reverted here. Given that the relevant sources that have been incorporated into the article are themselves conflicted as to the veracity of the clause in question, and given that the clause has been repeatedly disputed here, I think we can agree that we need to adjust its parent sentence somehow. I hope we can either return the original compromise edit (preferably through a self-revert), or suggest another compromise here. Thanks.--Heyitspeter (talk) 07:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not a compromise to get everything you want and give nothing at all up. Here's a compromise for you - remove "Climategate" from the lead entirely. How's that work? Hipocrite (talk) 09:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a compromise in that it states the consensus we have all of us reached, that the incident has been dubbed and/or is known as "Climategate." What it leaves out is the contentious (and perhaps inaccurate) claim that it was dubbed Climategate by "skectics of anthropogenic climate change." This makes it a compromise, and brings the article in line with WP:Consensus. Does that satisfy you? If so, please say so. --Heyitspeter (talk) 01:01, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree. Hipocrite (talk) 11:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"Climategate" not "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident".. "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident".. not "Climategate"..

"Climategate" afair (scandal) burst, direct outgrowth "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident"

Climate change denialsk:Klimatoskeptik argue (included in the) "Climategate" = Hockey stick controversy + Global warming controversy + http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IPCC_controversy&redirect=no

"Climategate" = (at the moment) Conspiracy theories

sk:Redaktor:Alamo 14:57 10 January 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 13:57, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

If I'm following you correctly, it is indeed a problem that there are attempts to broaden this specific unauthorised disclosure of emails and data, and the compromising of security on the CRU website, with the broader issues of human contributions to climate change. This article appropriately deals with notable claims and counter claims related directly to the disclosure, and makes necessary assumptions about the broader issues covered in detail in other articles. . Thanks, dave souza, talk 14:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Here's another proposal re Climategate in the lead, "The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident (or whatever we come up with for the title), [#naming_of_the_incident ("Climategate")]...", i.e we use the simple parenthisis-quote construct in common use for neologisms and link Climategate to the section on the naming controversy. Just a thought JPatterson 19:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

No. If we are going to use "Climategate" in the lede at all, it must be made clear that this is a pejorative term cooked-up by AGW skeptics/deniers to re-frame an incident of data theft as a scandal that somehow proves the science is wrong. There is no denying that this easy-to-remember name has "caught on", but Wikipedia's voice should not be used to promote it as if it were in anyway legitimate. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Scjessey you're "requiring" that this article include controversial material over which consensus has not been reached, which material conflicts with some of the sources we cite in the article. This position is untenable. --Heyitspeter (talk) 01:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Well that's one POV, one that could be explored fully in the naming section that we link to. Another is that the name arose organically, as a in "how long before this called Climategate", a quote attributed to, by one account, the coiner of the term. Look, I get that you want to discredit the whole affair, I get that you think "we have a controversy because skeptics have made it so, [by] blowing up this molehill into a mountain." I get that you are "disinclined to sit still while skeptics attempt to use Wikipedia to pile even more bullshit on top of that mountain". Do you get that that is not your role to play here? JPatterson 21:09, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Who are you to say what my role is? As I stated earlier, I edit Wikipedia because I like the project and I want to make it the best it can be. From your editing record, it is clear you edit Wikipedia to promote your personal POV/ideology. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:14, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

So, are Jpat34721, 75.106.249.239 and JPatterson all the same user, then? --Nigelj (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It certainly appears so. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I changed my sig (not my account) and sometimes WP logs me off and I don't notice. Sorry for the confusion. JPatterson 21:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Except you haven't changed your sig. You need to go into "my preferences" at the top of the screen and do it, otherwise the signing bot will keep on coming along and doing its thing. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That's what I did. For some reason when I do the 4 tildes, it signs my name but still says my posts are unsigned. I guess I need to go back to using jpat34721 JPatterson 23:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, worked that time. Who knows JPatterson 23:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

WP:SIG: "Signatures must include at least one internal link to your user page, user talk page, or contributions page; this allows other editors easy access to your talk page and contributions log. The lack of such a link is widely viewed as obstructive." - It could be that the lack of the relevant link or links is being seen by SineBot as a failure to sign appropriately. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, any idea how to link a signature to my user page? Nevermind, I figured it out JPatterson (talk) 03:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Having climategate at all is a compromise. I'm happy with this edit [4] William M. Connolley (talk) 08:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

How so? If you take dubbed to mean "called", it's demonstrably false. If you take it to mean "coined" it's unsupportable OR. JPatterson (talk) 15:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"Dubbed" is verifiable. "Called" is not. We've been over this before. Guettarda (talk) 16:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

? We just need an RS that says it's called ClimateGate... Here's one: [5].--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Dubbed is not verifiable, unless you can verify (without OR of course) the AWG view of the poster on WUWT who appears to have coined the term. His post is earlier than any of the other references cited in the naming section. Please provide a reputable source that verifies his view on AWG JPatterson (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

An IP editor from Summit, New Jersey has changed the lead again to read "colloqualy known as." I've added some other colloquisms in. Hipocrite (talk) 16:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not such a bad idea, really. Guettarda (talk) 16:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I too like "colloqualy known as". It is neutral and avoids starting off the article with a food fight. JPatterson (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I have tried a compromise edit which combime colloquially known with a link from Climate gate to the naming the incident section. Comments? JPatterson (talk) 17:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I removed the both the edit of the anon (does it really matter where it is from? why bring that up?) and the obscure nickname-adding? Let's not pile onto an absurdity with an even bigger one, pls. Tarc (talk) 16:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You're right. My comment above was poorly thought out. "Colloquially known as" isn't without merit, but like everything I've seen other than the current wording, it's without source. Guettarda (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Another revert at compromise was attempted. Allow me to be perfectly clear - you are compromising with noone if the only nickname in the lead is "climategate," and it is not sourced to the creaters and current (ab)users of the name - AGW sceptics. Hipocrite (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The compromise wording was reverted to the wording without explanation yet again. I don't see consensus for this. Hipocrite (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

And another drive-by revert to the wording without explanation. Hipocrite (talk) 19:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey all. I recently made another attempt (reverted, I think accidentally). I figure I should display it here as it's pretty different than others and may get passed over if that's not pointed out. It drops talk of dubbing and coining of the term and sticks to the more informative, "What it's called." Here it is, with the reference brought out as a link:

The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, also called "Climategate",[6] came to light...

Is this version agreeable?--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No. There is no evidence that it is "also called 'climategate'", but there is certainly a source (far, far stronger than the one your provide) that Skeptics portray the afair as "Climategate" and that Skeptics of global warming refer to the incident as "Climategate." Hipocrite (talk) 20:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The source you bring up would suffice as a citation that the incident is called "Climategate." You appear to be contesting the edit with a reference for it...--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I am seeing an awful lot of "climategate was named by agw sceptics" above, can anyone actually prove this? As just about every scandal since watergate has ended up being called whatever-gate by lazy journo`s then were is the actual proof that this name was coined by climate realists? --mark nutley (talk) 20:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The dubbing question is discussed along with some sources in the article in the section, "Naming of the incident." The clause is variously supported and contradicted.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't coined by climate realists, rather climate sceptics. Hipocrite (talk) 20:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Another drive-by, by the way. Hipocrite (talk) 20:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

With an interesting edit history. Funny how many of those we get these days. Just coincidence, I'm sure. Guettarda (talk) 20:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

How about "Individuals who oppose action on Anthropogenic global warming called the incident "Climategate", which became a commonly used neologism for the incident." JPatterson (talk) 22:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Towards Consensus of Goals

Since there is so much contention as to content I'd like to see how close we are on goals. Can we agree that:

• A notable controversy exists. Our goal is to chronicle the controversy and not pass judgment on the relative merits of the arguments of the various sides
• When completed, no one should be able to use this article to bolster one side of the controversy or the other
• When completed, the article should be cohesive, appearing to be written by a single author whose views on the controversy (or AGW) should be undetectable.
• That there are basically 3 sides to the controversy:

• It's a tempest in a teapot - supported mainly by those who fear the incident will hinder action of AGW
• It proves AGW is a hoax - supported mainly by those who want to prevent action on AGW
• It raises serious questions about the scientific process - Experts from both camps have expressed this view

and that the position of each of these sides needs to be covered fairly in the article.

• That BLP guidelines should be strictly adhered to
• That the tone of the article should be dispassionate and non-inflamatory

Is there disagreement with the above? Did I miss any? JPatterson (talk) 20:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You might want to get the acronyms right; it's not "AWG"... -- ChrisO (talk) 20:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks JPatterson (talk) 20:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with most of this:

• It is not "a notable controversy". At the most 2 - 4 CRU employees will need to be told off for writing carelessly worded e-mails while at work.
• The fourth 'side' to the 'controversy' is that 2 - 4 CRU scientists will need to be more careful what they type during work time.

All the rest is nonsense created, inflamed and lied about by people who weren't there, don't understand the science or therefore the e-mails, and who haven't waited to read the results of the inquiries (that haven't appeared yet) or of the trials of the perpetrators (who haven't been arrested yet). --Nigelj (talk) 20:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"people who weren't there, don't understand the science or therefore the e-mails, and who haven't waited to read the results of the inquiries (that haven't appeared yet) or of the trials of the perpetrators (who haven't been arrested yet)" - you have just described practically all wikipedia editors. Ignignot (talk) 22:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• It is not "a notable controversy". At the most 2 - 4 CRU employees will need to be told off for writing carelessly worded e-mails while at work.

If true, you should have no trouble getting this article deleted. Have you suggested this?

• The fourth 'side' to the 'controversy' is that 2 - 4 CRU scientists will need to be more careful what they type during work time.

This would seem to fall squarely in the "tempest in a teapot (TIAT) camp.

Do you think comments like this are going to sway opinion or move us any closer to consensus? JPatterson (talk) 21:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't care what you think; my only goal is to keep this article vaguely connected to reality and not allow it to be hijacked or swayed by conspiracy theorists, flat-earthers, creationists, or any other internet whackos. --Nigelj (talk) 21:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• A notable controversy exists - no, that's not established. Per your "three sides" below, the first and third do not a "notable controversy" make, and the second is, of course, demonstrably wrong.
• When completed, no one should be able to use this article to bolster one side of the controversy or the other - no, it should bolster whichever side has the facts on their side.
• When completed, the article should be cohesive, appearing to be written by a single author whose views on the controversy ... should be undetectable - It should be cohesive, and it should follow policy.
• Further to Nigelj's "fourth side", there is, of course, a fifth side - that the controversy here is the extent to which the far right, and a compliant media, are willing to spin anything they can find for propaganda value. Which is the point of the term "swifthack".

The last two points reiterate the third - that the article should follow policy and guidelines. Guettarda (talk) 21:05, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• "A notable controversy exists - no, that's not established. Per your "three sides" below, the first and third do not a "notable controversy" make, and the second is, of course, demonstrably wrong."

This is a comment on the validity of the arguments, not on the notability of the controversy. Again, if your view is self-apparent, nominate the article for removal. Should be a piece of cake JPatterson (talk) 21:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• "When completed, no one should be able to use this article to bolster one side of the controversy or the other - no, it should bolster whichever side has the facts on their side."

And you think WP is qualified to say who has the facts on their side? JPatterson (talk) 21:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• "Further to Nigelj's "fourth side", there is, of course, a fifth side - that the controversy here is the extent to which the far right, and a compliant media, are willing to spin anything they can find for propaganda value. Which is the point of the term "swifthack"."

Which shows that those who insist on using this non-notable term are POV pushing JPatterson (talk) 21:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

A political left right assessement of AGW versus Deniers seems to be the usual perspective in some english speaking countries. Its not at all the case anywhere else (see e.g. Merkels role).Second a fifth alternative can be found along Pielkes (The influence of land-use change and landscape dynamics on the climate system) suggestion to put other human made drivers beside and beyond global carbonemissions into a perspective. I assume this is the major outcome out of the failure of copenhagen AND the CRU tribal (compare de:Mike Hulme) behavior uncovered by the hacking incident nd you would be better off to get out of the trench warfare here as soon as possible. --Polentario (talk) 22:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe something that could be used in a new section Leading up to the incident?

In the article Peer-to-Peer Review: How ‘Climategate’ Marks the Maturing of a New Science Movement, Part I, Patrick Courrielche writes "What was triggered at this blog (the Air Vent) was the death of unconditional trust in the scientific peer review process, and the maturing of a new movement – that of peer-to-peer review. […] Remember these names: Steven Mosher, Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, Jeff “Id” Condon, Lucia Liljegren, and Anthony Watts. These, and their community of blog commenters, are the global warming contrarians that formed the peer-to-peer review network and helped bring chaos to Copenhagen – critically wounding the prospects of cap-and-trade legislation in the process. One may have even played the instrumental role of first placing the leaked files on the Internet.". First of all, is this a proper source for this kind of analysis? Nsaa (talk) 01:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No. It's just another Andrew Breitbart blog. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

... and what's wrong with Andrew Breitbart? Nsaa (talk) 02:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It is not a case of what's wrong with Andrew Breitbart - it is just the WP does not generally use blogs (ie. opinion) as sources. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There is already a surfeit of opinion on this topic. We don't need yet more, particularly from fringe commentators. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Nsaa's intent that the effects of ClimateGate on science should be discussed. Particularly the peer-review process and public trust in science. Agree with the others that that particular bog entry is not the best way to go about it. Although I enjoyed that story and agree with nearly everything said, it's still a blog, which wikipedia usually avoids. Perhaps one or more of these links could supplement or replace the blog link? Climategate: Science Is Dying (WSJ) On environment, Obama and scientists take hit in poll Political polarization on environmental science (Washington Post) (first question in that link is regarding public trust in scientists) Sarah Palin On ClimateGate, Copenhagen: Beware Politicized Science (CBS) John Derbyshire: Trust Science But Don't Trust Scientists (CBS) Cringing Over Climategate (Forbes) 'Climategate' May Hold Lessons on Openness for Researchers Under Pressure (Chronicle) 'Climategate' resolution underlines concern over data falsification (RSC) 'Show Your Working': What 'ClimateGate' means (BBC) Open Science and climategate: The IPCC/CRU needs to take a leaf out of CERN's Book (Free Software Magazine) --Magicjava (talk) 06:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree about the need for assessment of the impact on science, but that may be rather premature. A couple of these links that I've looked at suggest ill informed opinion pieces. Can you point to specific links out of them that you think are balanced and accurate, and not just first reactions to the news? Thanks, dave souza, talk 10:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd start with these:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR2009121800002.html On environment, Obama and scientists take hit in poll (Washington Post) Article discussing results of scientific poll.

Political polarization on environmental science (Washington Post) Results of scientific poll.

'Climategate' resolution underlines concern over data falsification (RSC) (Discusses House Resolution 954 to preclude future infringements of public trust by scientific falsification and fraud)

Open Science and climategate: The IPCC/CRU needs to take a leaf out of CERN's Book (Free Software Magazine) (The article is bias, but the section on the Peer Review is good. It discusses the short comings of Peer Review and the advantages alternative Double Blind Review, which is what the Open Source community uses) --Magicjava (talk) 08:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The first two appear to make no mention of the emails stolen from CRU – you seem to be synthesising your own interpretation of the polls, but from what I can see they're not admissible on this article. The chemistryworld article looks useful both for noting a continuing discussion on standards before and after the incident, and for description of political moves by a Republican making use of the publicity – what happened to House Resolution 954 introduced on 8 December? Rather reminiscent of the various Academic Freedom bills. The Free Software Magazine seems, surprisingly enough, to be promoting OSS, but looks very badly informed about the IPCC process and in my view lacks credibility. The IPCC process is something we should describe, as it's evidently widely misunderstood. dave souza, talk 11:44, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Misleading cite in section "Naming of the incident"

The first sentence of Section "Naming of the incident" mischaracterises the content of its cite. The current sentence is:

'Analysis by FactCheck concluded that sceptics who allege that the documents show fabrication of evidence of man-made global warming are portraying it as a major scandal, using the term "Climategate".[19]'

The cite refers to http://factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/ wherein we find the only "analysis" for this is the following assertion:

'Skeptics claim this trove of e-mails shows the scientists at the U.K. research center were engaging in evidence-tampering, and they are portraying the affair as a major scandal: "Climategate." '

This is neither an "analysis" nor a "conclusion", it's a mere assertion with no attempt to support it.

If we attempt to fix the Wikipedia sentence by removing the references to "FactCheck", "analysis" and "concluded" we end up with:

'"Sceptics who allege that the documents show fabrication of evidence of man-made global warming are portraying it as a major scandal, using the term "Climategate".[19]'

But this new sentence is self-evidently invalid - e.g. its reference to "sceptics" is unscoped - not every sceptic would agree with the term "Climategate". It's a bad claim even in its source - the FactCheck item.

The sentence should either be dropped, or an alternative and superior source should be found. Cadae (talk) 11:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. --Magicjava (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, would question why the naming of the incident is even in the article. Is there a "naming of the incident" section in wiki's coverage of Billygate? Of Camillagate? Of Monicagate? The closest I can find is something like this: "The scandal is sometimes referred to as "Monicagate",[5] "Lewinskygate",[6] "Tailgate",[7] "Sexgate",[8] and "Zippergate",[8] following the "gate" nickname construction that became popular in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal." for the entry on the Lewinsky scandal.--Magicjava (talk) 08:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I've added a dubious tag to the cite to mark this. Since no one seems to be defending this sentence here, propose we delete it soon. JPatterson 00:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

Maybe because quite a lot of people who work on this article are either (a) asleep, or (b) watching NFL playoff games. Propose we leave it where it is until there's been more discussion by regular Wikipedians. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The whole Factcheck article is an 'analysis' of the situation. The sentence you quote is analysis. As for the alternative, it seems rather lacking in a good source. What skeptics? Who are we talking about? Who came to this conclusion? The existing wording ties an actual source (Factcheck) and represents is an their analysis, not an incontrovertible fact. Guettarda (talk) 07:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

But the article incorrectly states the FC piece made a conclusion about the source of the term. I can find no such conclusion. Please help us out by citing the specific sentence in the FC article that supports the claim. JPatterson (talk) 00:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The statement in the article is based on the "Summary" that "Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming." and the "Analysis" that "Skeptics claim this trove of e-mails shows the scientists at the U.K. research center were engaging in evidence-tampering, and they are portraying the affair as a major scandal: "Climategate." Saudi Arabian climate negotiator Mohammad Al-Sabban went so far as to tell the BBC: "It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change." He said that he expected news of the e-mails to disrupt the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen this month. An article from the conservative-leaning Canada Free Press claims that the stolen files are proof of a "deliberate fraud" and "the greatest deception in history."....."

To meet the concerns expressed, I've quoted "are portraying the affair as a major scandal: 'Climategate'." directly, and removed the tag. The statement doesn't preclude the idea that others are using the term, but it's the self-described analysis by a generally accepted neutral source. Do please find similarly neutral sources analysing the usage and reaching their own conclusions. . dave souza, talk 11:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Trenberth email

This edit removes an unsupportable weasel and adds some CV info to Trenberth's intro. (see discussion on Passive weasels above). I could find no critic who actually said this although a lot of secondary source claim they did. It didn't really add anything to the discussion anyway. The implications are clear from the email excerpt and Trenberth's response speaks for itself. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:02, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The quote itself is just a snippet and perhaps should be expanded to include the part where Dr. Trenberth mentions the observations are not supplying enough data to verify or refute the energy balance model. --Magicjava (talk) 06:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree in principle, do you have a specific secondary source in mind that presents the extended extract from the email that you were thinking of? Please note that we don't want to synthesise our own extract from the purloined email itself. Thanks, dave souza, talk 11:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

There's a source on Media Matters here. It's the 2nd claim down the page. Dr. Trenberth's "travesty" is that the CERES satellite is showing warming of something like 6 watts per meter squared (i.e. more than 6 times what is expected from the models), yet temperatures are going down. It's pretty clear from the full quote that A) Models don't match actual measurements, and B) Dr. Trenberth believes the CERES satellite measurements are wrong. Hard to disagree with him in this case since the weather looked nothing like what the satellites said it should be. --Magicjava (talk) 23:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that source looks useful and gives links to relevant articles. Something to build on. . . dave souza, talk 11:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Semi?

This [7] shouldn't be necessary William M. Connolley (talk) 11:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

IBMers against science? Such edits still seem pretty rare, surprisingly enough, so I don't think semi would usually be applied in the circumstances, but worth keeping under review. . . dave souza, talk 12:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Has James Delingpole really been editing wikipedia? Nil Einne (talk) 12:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Nah, he's no IBMer, nothing so technical. Just some journo and pundit. . . dave souza, talk 13:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Some confusion here I think... (1) the vandalism referred to by WMC came from an IBM IP address and (2) Delingpole was ranting about Wikipedia (and sending swarms of ranters here), not editing it himself. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I was struck by the edit summary of "Loosers!" What are we being too loose about here? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly IBM's standards are slipping... -- ChrisO (talk) 01:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean the IBMer said the Delingpole blog was commentary from an 'uninvolved editor'. I don't see how his blog can be commentary from an 'uninvolved editor' unless Delingpole himself is an editor on some area of wikipedia. Of course it's easily possible the IBMer was wrong, I was just wondering if he wasn't and there's something I missed Nil Einne (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The second half of the lede

I saw recently that that there were two versions of the second half of the lede vying for prominence in the revert process. The obvious compromise seems to be to combine the two, which is what I have just done. The main points covered in the second half are as follows, and space-wise as well as in terms of summarising the main points of the article I see no reason why we can't mention all of them:

1. Allegations:
   1. withholding scientific information,
   2. interfering with the peer-review process of scientific papers,
   3. deleting e-mails and raw data to prevent disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act,
   4. "cherry picking" data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.
2. Refuted by
   1. The University of East Anglia,
   2. other scientists,
   3. scientific organisations,
   4. elected representatives and governments from around the world
3. Typical refutation points
   1. a smear campaign,
   2. intended to sabotage 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit.
4. Announcements re future
   1. independent review of the allegations will be carried out by Sir Muir Russell
   2. Phil Jones, to stand aside

--Nigelj (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Im general I like the synthesis. I do think there is still some improvements in tone that could me made. "emails show" is too close to "emails prove". I prefer "emails indicate". Also "collude" seems unnecessarily inflammatory. JPatterson (talk) 19:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point, I've changed the word. . . dave souza, talk

So, we had consensus for this for best part of a day, but then along comes this edit and it is all lost again. If we are going to take all the references out of the lede, how are we going to stop random people coming along and deleting whatever they like from it, saying "missing citations". This is a potentially serious problem since we can't simply revert such nonsense any more. --Nigelj (talk) 13:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I've added a commented out reminder that there are citations in the body text, per WP:LEAD, the wording of that reminder is of course open to review. . dave souza, talk 14:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

New news at last!

And quite interesting too: the local newspaper has reported that the National Domestic Extremism Team is now involved in the police investigation.[8] It looks like they may be pursuing some interesting lines of enquiry... -- ChrisO (talk) 20:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

So does this now make this article part of the War on Terrorism^TM? Guettarda (talk) 20:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Domestic extremism is usually taken to refer to neo-Nazi groups, animal rights extremism etc - organised groups rather than just "lone wolves". The involvement of the NDET suggests that the police are exploring the possibility that the hack was the work of a criminal conspiracy rather than just a lone right-wing wacko. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, this sheds more light on it (from the Beeb): ""At present we have two police officers assisting Norfolk with their investigation, and we have also provided computer forensic expertise. While this is not strictly a domestic extremism matter, as a national police unit we had the expertise and resource to assist with this investigation, as well as good background knowledge of climate change issues in relation to criminal investigations." [9] I'll work this in somewhere. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like Delingpole was on about this a couple days ago. Guettarda (talk) 20:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The inevitable comparison between people who think the Medieval Warm Period may have had an indistinguishable climate from now and people who believe in ethnic cleansing is sickening. If we're going to add this, can we please keep it as concise as possible? Ignignot (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the more appropriate comparison is between the anti-science activist(s) who hacked the server and the anti-science activists who've been terrorising medical researchers for years (and who were a major reason for the NDET being established). Anyway, I've added a suitably neutral bit to the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That comment isn’t helpful. We know nothing, literally nothing about those who were responsible. While they may turn out ot be activists, there’s no evidence they are anti-science. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were pro-science. In any event, I have no objection to the edit you made, but it would be useful to keep wholesale speculation to a minimum. SPhilbrickT 23:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd guess that using criminal means to deliberately sabotage the work of a leading research institution doesn't qualify as "friendly to science". -- ChrisO (talk) 01:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, sabotage, interesting choice of words considering the data from this "leading research institution" was ONLY released. Furthermore, since NDET (if they actually did it) did not attach any message to the e-mails about why they did it, it cannot be argued that they were pro-science or not, that is ridiculous, the only thing they could be is pro-truth. - Gunnanmon (talk) 06:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

We all share some views with people who have taken them to extremes. Or more to the point, once governments invest their resources in things like NDET (or SWAT), their arena f use is going to broaden, if for no other reason than to justify spending the money on them in the first place. Guettarda (talk) 21:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

What was added by ChrisO was fine by me. Ignignot (talk) 21:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

<offtopic light relief> One-upmanship by Al Gore ;-P . . dave souza, talk 18:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Inhofe

This edit[10] and its quick revert caught my eye today. It seems weird to have to frame a quote by a well-known politician by stating that he is "an outspoken sceptic of climate change". On the other hand, I don't think you could understand his statement that Climategate is the last nail in the coffin of AGW theory without understanding that his views are beyond just s-k-eptical (he would probably object to the British spelling), but outside the mainstream. I think the need to qualify his statement is an indication that maybe it's not the best statement to add here, because it's not representative of mainstream thinking, even mainstream American conservative / Republican thinking. If his position / statement is noted in the article because it is a noteworthy thing, as opposed to being in the article to illustrate legislators' reaction, then we need more context than just calling him a skeptic. Thoughts? - Wikidemon (talk) 23:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Last week we reached a consensus on removing inflammatory labels and characterizations from all intros, a move I think that has greatly improved the article. In particular, we agreed that "skeptic of climate change" is an unsupportable characterization. The person who re-inserted this characterization inserted a cite in an attempt to get around the consensus, but the cite doesn't support it. We'd have to use "the most outspoken critic of man-made global warming alarmism in the United States Senate" to be accurate and that seems silly to me JPatterson (talk) 00:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

ehm.. "Timeline" - "An anonymous post from a Saudi Arabian IP address[10] to the climate-sceptic blog The Air Vent,[4] described the material as "a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents" and defended the hacking on the grounds that climate science is "too important to be kept under wraps".[11]" ... climate-sceptic... who? sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 00:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

If your point is that we missed one or that this wording needs to change, I agree JPatterson (talk) 00:39, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Inhofe is a self-described skeptic and by all indications proud of it; sift through these links for details. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:57, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

There's no doubt he's a skeptic. But "climate skeptic" and "climate change skeptic" are nonsensical and pejorative. There was broad agreement using such labels (alarmists, warmers, deniers etc.) in the article was amateurish and non-encyclopedic. The wikilink that's provided in most cases makes their AGW position clear. JPatterson (talk) 01:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No, "skeptic" is just a brand name. "Contrarian" (or "denialist", the more common term, but apparently less common in peer reviewed sources) is the term used by academics why have written about this phenomenon. Guettarda (talk) 01:51, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, I'm not sure why labels of this sort are necessary except to give another arrow in the quiver of editors on both sides who want to push a POV. Denialist (a neologism that can be precluded on WP:Avoid Neologisms alone) in particular is a pejorative term meant to associate those who challenge the AGW orthodoxy as akin to holocaust deniers. Contrarians (another neologism), while not as bad, still begs the question of scope. Who's to say how much they disagree with and what their views are. Fairness and WP:BLP dictates we let people speak for themselves and not apply labels which can not be sourced. JPatterson (talk) 02:37, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Been discussed already. Please take the time to search the archives. Guettarda (talk) 06:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer not to. Do you have any opinion on this recent edit? - Wikidemon (talk) 08:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it's useful to provide enough context to answer the question "why him"? After all, he's one of a hundred US senators, and he represents a state with less than 4 million people. So context is useful. Guettarda (talk) 16:02, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, then, why him? - Wikidemon (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Good question. IIRC, when it was discussed before he was included because he was such a prominent "skeptic". Don't think he really should be there, but it's not a fight worth fighting for me. Guettarda (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

He's prominent because his rhetorical statements are colorful and extreme enough to make press, although it's not clear from the article or sources whether his making these statements has any meaningful effect on the public debate. The two archive discussions I read simply contained a few editors' opinions that we should not fill the article with qualifiers like calling him a skeptic, which I think is a pretty good prescription for all articles on all subjects. Going back to my original statement, I think the fact that he needs to be qualified as a skeptic to provide context for his statement is a good indication that his statement isn't all that important - if it were it would have a stronger context more relevant to the article. I doubt we have consensus right now to remove his statement, but over time if people keep questioning it, maybe down the road we should. His own article mentions climate-change skepticism -- actually, outright denial -- as a major legislative agenda item for him, so it would be more informative to mention that in the context of his own article than here. Wikidemon (talk) 20:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that we remove his statement from this article, at least until it's woven into some larger context? I'd say go for it, pending further discussion, of course. Guettarda (talk) 21:04, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd certainly go with that: he does look a bit out-ranked in the 'Elected representatives and governments' section. Has Obama not said a single word on this incident? That's amazing. What he said is looking a bit extreme and already dated too - in those first few days of the news-fest, extremists like him thought this would bring down the whole of climate science at a stroke and it clearly didn't. --Nigelj (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, then. I'd say wait another 12-24 hours to see if anyone else cares to weigh in, then go for it if warranted and point to this discussion to demonstrate consensus. *whew* - Wikidemon (talk) 22:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm all for removing Inhofe from the article. He gets lots of press coverage because he's willing to go out a limb with the full-on ignore-all-facts denial stuff, but nothing he says carries any meaningful weight - particularly outside the United States. Getting back to the original discussion though, I partly agree with Jpat that the characterizations of individuals are unnecessary if their BLPs already describe them. Inhofe's BLP already covers his extreme stance on AGW, so there is no need to repeat it here. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Nature; Climate e-mails: man's mark is clear in thermometer record

Interesting letter in a recent Nature, especially in view of the way some septics have tried to make von S their poster boy:

Nature, 7 January & Science, 8 January 2010 [11]

Correspondence: Nature 463, 25 (7 January 2010) | doi:10.1038/463025a; Published online 6 January 2010, Hans von Storch[2]1 & Myles Allen[3]2

We welcome debate about the ethics of science prompted by the language of some of the hacked e-mails from the UK Climatic Research Unit ([4]Nature 462, 545; 2009). Rightly or not, this has created concerns about the scientific process. But it is critical to point out that no grounds have arisen to doubt the validity of the thermometer-based temperature record since 1850.

Both the detection of climate change and its attribution to human activities rely on the thermometer-based temperature record (compiled by the Climatic Research Unit and other institutions). They do not rely on proxy reconstructions of temperature over the past millennium, which are based on indirect evidence such as tree rings. Reconstructions contribute less to our understanding of climate than the thermometer record because of uncertainty both in these reconstructions and in the drivers of climate change before the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media have confused the two. The thermometer record shows unequivocally that Earth is warming, and provides the main evidence that this is caused by human activity. This crucial record remains unchallenged.

Commentators have suggested that the e-mails disclose a 'team mentality' among prominent climate scientists. Some people may have gone too far in promoting particular viewpoints, so an independent enquiry and open discussion should help to re-establish public confidence. However, it is absurd to suggest that there is some kind of global conspiracy involving all climate scientists.

We and our colleagues have worked with the scientists at the centre of this controversy. We have examined, used and at times criticized their data and results -- just as they, at times, have criticized ours. Our disagreements have no bearing on our respect for other aspects of their work.

William M. Connolley (talk) 22:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, William, that's a significant source for the response of mainstream scientists to the debate and to media misrepresentation. Will try to review how to place it in the article. . dave souza, talk 17:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Mabe they jump the conclusion? "Unfortunately, the mainstream media have confused the two. The thermometer record shows unequivocally that Earth is warming, and provides the main evidence that this is caused by human activity". The first part has already got a lot of attention by M. CRU has used just temperature station in hot spot. Ex. in the old soviet picked ca 60 out off some 210 station (25 %) readings.Russian IEA claims CRU tampered with climate data – cherrypicked warmest stations They've not removed the 'hot spots' (uban development etc.) ... and how can they claim that the rise of temperature is due to human contributions? We all know that the MWP was ca. as warm as or above the current environment[12] (hey, the Vikings made a living of farming on Greenland: From our article: "Interpretation of ice core data suggests that between 800 and 1300 AD the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a mild climate, with trees[citation needed] and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th degree [10] What is verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has experienced dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years.[11]"[13]. This has disappeared from Hockey Stick ... Since the tree ring proxy data didn't support this ... Yea!—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nsaa (talk • contribs) 00:14, 13 January 2010

Nsaa, please sign your posts. Your incoherent statement suggests that you're paying too much attention to unreliable fringe bloggers and commentators, an effort to begin to understand the science would be more constructive. . . dave souza, talk 17:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't play that game again. You call it WP:FRINGE, I don't. It's fringe that Greenland was warmer? Nsaa (talk) 21:10, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not a game. And, for what it's worth, they're growing vegetables in Greenland these days. Guettarda (talk) 21:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

(e.c) In a letter to Nature you got this reaction from David R. Bell as reported in Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre - Nature Anti-FOI Editorial Criticized (sorry forgetting that this is FRINGE according to some of you?)

Climate e-mails: lack of data sharing is a real concern […]Your Editorial (Nature 462, 545; 2009) castigates “denialists” for making “endless, time-consuming demands for information under the US and UK Freedom of Information Acts”. But you do not mention the reason — that the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has systematically tried to avoid revealing data and code.[…] Science relies upon open analysis of data and methods, and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has a clear data-sharing policy that expects scientists “to cooperate in validating and publishing [data] in their entirety”. The university’s leaked e-mails imply a concerted effort to avoid data sharing, which both violates the best practice defined in NERC policy and prevents verification of the results obtained by the unit. Asking for scientific data and code should not lead to anyone being branded as part of the “climate-change denialist fringe”.[…] David R. Bell Molecular Toxicology, School of Biology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham

Nsaa (talk) 21:17, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

So, a Molecular Toxicologist is remarkably ignorant about how much data is readily available. I trust he has made all his personal emails available to the public in a spirit of open sharing. Not an expert on climate, and probably has as much credence in that field as Prof. Stuart Burgess, Professor of Design & Nature, Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol, has in biology. . . dave souza, talk 21:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Again a attack on the source. If you don't se the problem that CRU didn't share the ground data used, and the method they used for calculating the CRU-datasets for the global temperature is clearly your problem. That some of these emails also reveals that the scientist withheld it since they then got scrutinized is extremely troubling. You attacking the guy Writing to Nature is just not very elegant. Nsaa (talk) 21:37, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

"Withheld" is a strong term that indicates wrongdoing. It is my understanding that virtually all of the data were routinely made publicly available (the body of available data is enormous). They became understandably uncooperative when they were flooded with requests for data by an individual who wished to use that data to attempt to discredit their work. For all we know, some of the data may have been covered by corporate nondisclosure agreements (since some of the CRU funding is from the private sector). Another thing to consider is that is it quite routine for some newly-acquired information to be held back until researchers have a chance to publish, so that their work might get proper attribution. There is so much we don't know, and it is clear that random scientists from other fields of study are just as clueless as we are. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You have probably right in the Non disclosure stuff, but before both the raw data used and how the world temperature series are open for scrutiny by independent highly qualified persons (and others) the world can not trust most of the scientific work who base it's conclusions on these datasets. That's quit simple if you understand the scientific method (every work should be repeatable by other scientist – What happens if Homeopathy get the same treatments as these datasets? Then we would get extremely much more money used at Quack-medicine. The Homeopathy medicine work as pointed out in the peer reviewed Magazine Homeopathy. How did you come to these conclusion? No we want reveal the ground data or the methods to create the randomize group ... Just go for it and do the same kind of argument on this area). Nsaa (talk) 22:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

<ri>"[B]efore both the raw data used and how the world temperature series are open for scrutiny by independent highly qualified persons (and others) the world can not trust most of the scientific work who base it's conclusions on these datasets." - This is relevant to the article somehow? This isn't the place for you to broadcast your opinions. Guettarda (talk) 22:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Italics in the lead?

Yesterday I changed the lead text "Climategate" from italics to bold. I assumed that being in italics was an oversight, as I've never seen italics used in this manner in a WP lead and I'm not sure what italics inside of quotes would even mean. This edit by User:Dave souza changed it back to italics. What is the explanation for this? Climategate is an alternate name that redirects here and as such should be bolded. Oren0 (talk) 02:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Swifthack also redirects here. Are you proposing that be bolded as well?

Seriously though, we've discussed this already. We. You. Me. So why are you presenting this as if you don't already know the answer? Guettarda (talk) 03:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a consensus that Climategate belongs in the lead. There is no such consensus for Swifthack. Yes, if Swifthack was in the lead it would be bolded as an alternate name. But that isn't the conversation here. I don't recall you and I ever discussing whether the term should be italicized. Please enlighten me: what does it mean for a term to be in quotes and italics, as differentiated from just quotes? Why do you believe that the manual of style guideline for bolding doesn't apply here? Oren0 (talk) 04:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

But wait, your argument is that Climategate needs bolding because "is an alternate name that redirects here". If that's your argument, then alternate names that redirect to this article need to be bolded. If, on the other hand, it's just because you want to privilege one POV over the other...then it's bad.

And now it gets worse. This edit is horrible. "[S]ome scientists have described the incident as a smear campaign...[s]ome other scientists have stated that the incident reflects a problem". Seriously? Shouldn't we try to write something that doesn't sound like weaseling, and that's written in moderately decent English? Finally, to top it all off, in an article that's clearly written in English English, it's not acceptable to Americanise the idiom. Come on - all else aside, can't you try to abide by something as basic as that? This sort of tendentious editing is unacceptable, especially given the article probation. Guettarda (talk) 07:20, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Strike comment per [14] Guettarda (talk) 07:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

To consolidate discussion, please discuss this change at #Smear_Campaign where I have already elaborated somewhat. Oren0 (talk) 07:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Plan to make a minor edit to lede

Proposed edit

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change head Rajendra Pachauri are among those who have suggested that the incident was intended to sabotage undermine the then imminent December 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit.

Rationale: the word "sabotage" is a highly charged word which should be used with caution. In this situation, where we are not characterizing an action, but summarizing how others characterize it, the word should either be directly used by others, or the others words should unequivocally support the usage (even then, we would need a good reason for not using their actual characterization.) Here is the Brown cite: [15]. It uses the word "undermines" but does not use the word "sabotage". Here is the Pachauri cite: [16]. It uses the word "influence" but does not use the word "sabotage". There are other Pachauri cites - I checked most of them and did not find the word "sabotage". I did a quick google search for Pachauri and sabotage, and received some hits, but most were headlines not supported by actual words from Pachauri.

Arguably, we shouldn't even use the word "undermines" in connection with Pachauri, but I think the word doesn't unfairly characterize the tenor of the two articles. However, "sabotage" does not appear to be supportable.

I'm not going to make the edit immediately, I'm looking for some feedback, in case someone is aware of a cite I missed, or shows I missed someone in one of the cites, or has a better solution. I understand, by definition, that some want the word "sabotage", but is there any solid rationale for such a charged word?--SPhilbrickT 21:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support this thoughtful and reasonable proposal. "Undermine" is explicitly supported by the Gordon Brown comments, and implicitly supported by the Rajendra Pachauri comments. "Sabotage", while within the same ball park, is hard to justify with the cited references. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Compromise proposal I cannot support anything with the particular attribution. More than just Brown and Pachauri stated the goal was to xxx Copenhagen. As such, I am willing to compromise on sabotauge which I prefer to undermine which others prefer if the particular attribution is fixed. Hipocrite (talk) 21:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support on sabotage => undermine. I do agree with Hipocrite though that it is misleading to limit this to Brown&Pachauri. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support proposal, note that current wording doesn't limit it to Brown&Pachauri, as modified it would read that they "are among those who have suggested that the incident was intended to undermine the then imminent December 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit". . dave souza, talk 22:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
• Sure.--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I just made the edit - thanks to all for the feedback. --SPhilbrickT 23:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Who are "sceptics of anthropogenic climate change"?

they are Climate change denial deniers ?? sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 13:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting link, but the "skeptics" label is a self-description that appears in most of the sources. There are various degrees of denial, and the more scientifically literate opponents of the current consensus accept that there is a man-made contribution to climate change, and that the climate is changing for the warmer, but dispute whether that man-made contribution is statistically significant. Jolly hockey sticks! . . dave souza, talk 14:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• • what "consensus"? Over 30,000 scientists have now signed the NIPCC's statement of disbelief in AGW. How many are signed up to the IPCC's summary for policymakers? It would need to be 200,000 to 300,000 this to be called consensus. By some counts, however, it's only about 100 -a dn that's even if you count the likes of Michael Mann and Phil Jones as scientists, which is fighting talk. 86.141.71.87 (talk) 00:17, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. What about it? I know very little about it. Where was it published? Who verified the names, qualifications, and academic affiliations of these 30,000 scientists? Guettarda (talk) 00:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

new "password" Scientific opponents global warming? no? then Climate change denial.. "pump it" :P sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 14:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear what you are trying to say. Hipocrite (talk) 14:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Methinks the young one should stick with the Slovakian Wikipedia. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

why? I feel "at home", finally you have achieved pure post-socialist newspeak , congratulations sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 16:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't want to go too far off topic with this Dave, but it hasn't warmed in about 12 years. :P --Magicjava (talk) 23:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree, remember it's not possible to "Hide the decline" much longer … The mini ice age starts here Nsaa (talk) 00:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"Individuals who oppose action on global warming" :O Blacklist-List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming - are they? sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 13:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No sign of a blacklist, notice that they're not necessarily experts on climate. Rather reminiscent of A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, but much more reputable. . . dave souza, talk 14:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)